Good intentions. I truly wanted to chronicle this journey, but the journey took precedence over the chronicle.
The situation is not good. There are several small lesions in her brain. She rarely opens her eyes, and she is only sometimes able to communicate with a mumbled syllable or two.
She's in the hospital again, but we may bring her home today. My siblings and I are all wired to fight until the bitter end to hold onto her, but yesterday we had to put the fight in us aside. There is a time to fight, and a time to lay down our arms. A time for war, a time for peace. Today is a time for peace.
I went by the house last night to take care of some things. Looking at the pictures on the wall, I suddenly realized that every one of them meant something to my mom. Not just the family photos, but even the hodge-podge of prints she displayed here and there. The two ducks in the foyer. The overgrown wagon-wheel. The little girl over the server.
Especially the little girl. A simple white dress. A petifore? I can't recall even now. I seemed to notice only the face. Downcast. A seeming look of guilt. Did the child do something wrong? Probably not. But she felt the guilt anyway. It is her nature to carry the burdens of others, isn't it? She loves those around her, and intensely desires good for them, even when they don't want it for themselves. She serves with total selflessness, because she believes that she was born to give of herself.
No, she was born to give herself. To give until the vessel is dry. Empty. And then, when there is nothing left inside, I wonder, where is she now?
Where is the giver? To many, the selfish, the blind, the misguided, she was invisible. A piece of furniture or a part of the landscape.
But to those who could see, she was so much more. She was innocence in an age of filth. She was love from a time when it still went by the name "Charity." To her, it was only the little things that mattered.
After all, we people are little things. If you haven't noticed this fact recently, then you probably haven't stood outside and looked up at the stars in a long time. You won't see them from here in the city. You'll need to get out into the countryside. Out away from all the streetlights, perhaps on a farm, the kind where a little girl like the one in the print would play. And as fall would push the sun lower in the sky and begin to drag the leaves from their branches, the little girl would play late into the day, pretending that she was a princess or maybe one of the heroines from the Bible.
She would talk to herself, to the insects, to the sky, to God. And even though chaos reigned back at the house, her imaginary world was perfection.
The sun was setting early, the back porch light came on (supper would be soon), and the stars came out by the millions. She would lie on her back on a grassy hill and count them.
But now she is old and weak. She lies in a hospital bed, her eyes closed, but above her she still sees the stars. And soon she will shine among them.
