amidprivilege.com

Hospice explained how the nurse at Mom’s place could use morphine if Mom seemed to register pain. At 3:30am my youngest sister called and told us Mom’s pulse rate was very high, her oxygen low. My sister’s husband came, he stayed until Mom’s body was collected. We tell birth stories, this is my Mom’s death story.

My mother died yesterday, early in the morning, in her room at her memory care home. Today I realized that I could not talk to anyone, in the virtual or physical space, without telling them my mother had died. But if I’m telling anyone I don’t see in person, I’m telling you all first. There is no loss, as she is here in small pieces, in scenes I am still remembering, and because she was so wholly gone when I saw her last, and yet of course it is a loss.

Once they hit 60 it’s boom, health obsession. Don’t think I’m not counting. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that health isn’t separate. So I don’t see eating more vegetables and less meat and cheese, or trying to exercise more even though I fail, as being obsessed with “health.

In Vogue last month (which I promise I did not know before deciding to write this post) and from Miuccia Prada over several decades. I myself now fly lower in the fashion skies, so I wear black tops with enormously baggy boyfriend chinos and call it a day. Either way, before I go out, I will stop in front of my mirror and consider. When it’s warm outside, I keep the fitted black tee and khaki chinos simple with black sneakers and some gold studs, or hoops.