“How was traffic?” Heavy.  “How were the roads?”  Dry.  “Was it hard to drive in the snow?”  There was no snow, Mom—the roads were dry.  “Did you get to see Paul today?”  Yep—every day.  I work with my close friend the City Engineer every day.  For dinner, I served mini pizzas made from toasted English muffins topped with spaghetti sauce, chopped ham, and shredded Mexican blend cheese—a passable dinner—I have come a long way from my fine French entrees.  Dad has stopped taking the diuretic medicine because he grew tired of having to pee every hour (with the benefit of increased exercise), but his legs look like fleshy tree trunks and his feet like hot water bottles with stubby toes.  Nurse Chanetelle convinced him to wear his calf-length compression socks (he will not even talk about wearing the hip-length ones), and I dug them out of his sock drawer and laid then over the back of his bedroom sofa, where remain two days later.  The Christmas tree came down on New Years Day, leaving a green mess of fake needles, so the vacuum cleaner came out and sucked up the needles and the bits of dried food from Christmas Eve, leaving the food and foot stains behind, so the spot cleaner squirted and the carpet shampooer roared and roamed and sucked up dark water.  I take pride in my work, and left the dining and living rooms with beautiful rows of long triangular shapes, each width equal to the others.  Looks so much better, I thought with tired satisfaction, and while I was stowing the vacuum and shampooer and bottles of carpet soap Mom tottered across the wet carpet with her new dig-your-toes-in gait to put the crystal candlesticks away.  I suppose I am being silly, but I felt like someone had left prints in my new smoothed cement or dragged their fingers across my finished canvas.  No harm done, actually—none to justify my irritation.  Mom dug into the garbage to remove the mug I had thrown away, because the microwaved chocolate cake mix was gross and would take three gallons of water to wash out, and we don’t need another nondescript mug in the cupboards anyway—you see, I did have my justifying reasons for throwing the mug away, and then there are my used Ziploc bags which she pulls out of the garbage to wash with a gallon of water each and to dry over wooden spoon handles lined on the countertop, for recycling, even where they had contained raw chicken or fish—They don’t want our soiled baggies, I wanted to scream.  She has been such a dedicated recycler.  She has been such a dedicated mother.  Her dementia is worsening.  The pharmacy delivered a hospice Comfort Kit (also known as an emergency kit) and nurse Jonathan spread the contents out on the table and explained that the dozen blue oral-solution morphine micro-dose syringes are for pain or distress or discomfort or difficulty breathing (from congestive heart failure) and the dozen green oral-solution lorazepam syringes are for anxiety and distress, and they could be used together.  “I prefer not to take anything habit-forming,” Dad rebuffed, smiling righteously.  I want a Comfort Kit!! I felt like shouting.  I could use a little morphine now and again!  Another form of comfort came in Gaylen the hospice chaplain, who found Dad in great spirits and relatively great shape considering most of the people Gaylen counsels and comforts are days from death and cannot speak and do not know who anyone is and are wasted and broken and ready to go, so he assures them the afterlife is real and they have nothing to fear on the other side, where they will be free of their pains and troubles.  I wouldn’t mind a little of that comfort, too.

(Pictured above: Crossing over the suspension bridge on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail in Draper, Utah.)