“It looks like you may pull a Grandma Johnson on us, mom,” Alan told mother on the second afternoon after her aneurism attack. Mom looked up bleakly from the pillow she was resting on, and it looked to me like she was about to burst into tears.
“I really don't want to,” she half sobbed.
Poor mother. Grandma Johnson, her mom, had lived to be one hundred, but the last thirty years of her life had been one traumatic episode after another. I remember my brother, Phillip, taking his new bride by the hospital to visit Grandma before they left on their honeymoon because the doctors were sure she wouldn't make it through the night. That was when she was 78 years old. Time after time it looked like grandma was going to pass on, but time after time she rallied and got better. Mom sure did not want to do that.
Mother was tired. Her pulmonary hypertension had reached a point where she could hardly move from her wheel chair to her bed without getting sick. Now it looked like she had an aneurism in the artery on the left side of her neck that was tearing apart. But like her mother, mom didn't know how to give up.
“Is there anything special you want us to do if you pass on?” we asked mother the afternoon after her aneurism attack. My brother, Keith, and my sisters Linda and Sharon and I were sitting in her bedroom, having a small family meeting with mom.
“No,” she said weakly, looking around at each of us. “I really don't care what you do at my funeral, I'm sure you will make it lovely. Just don't let anyone have hard feelings when it comes time to divide my things up, OK.”
I squeezed mom's hand, and she went on. “I remember when Grandma Johnson died. She wanted all my brothers and sisters and me to get together and take turns dividing her stuff, so no one would feel bad. Maybe you can do that with our family.”
“Sure, we can,” Keith assured mom.
“One thing, though,” mother added, looking at me. “Gale, I want you to make sure Moe goes through the shop and gets all of his stuff back. Then have him light a match to the rest of it.”
I grinned, and Keith and my sisters laughed. It had been kind of tough when my brothers divided dad's stuff up the previous year after he died. When we moved in with mom, Moe put his tools in the shop. I guess mom wanted to make sure no one thought there was still stuff in there that should be divided among the family.
By that evening mom was doing well enough that Keith decided to go home.
“You can cut your pain medicine in half if you want to,” Alan told mom that night when he checked in on her.
By the next day she was so much better that she was in no pain at all, and for the first time since moving to Snowflake, she was warm. It was a side affect of the pain medicine, I'm sure, but also the blessing Moe gave her and the prayers of all the family.
“If you're not having any pain, you can stop the pain medicine completely,” Alan told her that night, so I didn't need to get up every four hours to give it to her. On the other hand, I still got up to check on her. Moe fixed a door bell to put on mom's bedside table, which she promised to ring if she needed help, so that night I slept in my own bedroom. It did look, at least for the time being, like mom was going to stay with us for a little while longer.
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