It's clear there will be no bounce back to feeling better. It's obvious Mother's decline is relentlessly ongoing and irrevocable despite my hope that maybe I'd arrive today and she'd be sitting up in bed making perfect sense again and pestering me to go fetch her a sandwich from Jason's Deli. She hasn't had anything to eat in over 24 hours now. She will only rouse when we're persistent, and it doesn't last long until she drops off into a morphine induced sleep. But Praise God that her tremendous pain continues to remain at bay and she is resting comfortably.
Late this afternoon she woke up for about ten minutes and was lucid for part of it. I told her I loved her as tears ran down my face. She asked me if I was crying and I nodded. She told me she loved me, too. She got quiet for a bit, then told me it was about time for coffee and got this peaceful look on her face. Which struck me as odd because she has always been a first thing in the morning coffee drinker. The only time she ever drank coffee in the afternoons was with her mother (my granny) and granny's friends. The old ladies would take turns gathering at each other's homes several afternoons a week to visit over coffee and chain smoke cigarettes.
As a kid, I accompanied my granny and mother to these afternoon gatherings until I was old enough to be left home alone. Or disappeared to my room when they gathered at our house because I hated the smell of cigarettes. The usual crowd was my granny, Carmen, Flossie, Minnie and sometimes Estelle. All of these ladies were Christians, and so I can't help but wonder if this means mother is looking forward to reuniting with these sweet women she knew her whole life. That they're waiting for mother to join them for coffee once again. Minus the cigarettes. I'd love to be a fly on the walls of heaven to witness that reunion.
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