not tonight, most likely

When asked, the nurse said that the odds were that Miriam would not die tonight.

There is a degree of comfort there, but her struggle with this damned disease is about over. She won't make it to Christmas most likely.

A week from Sunday the family is gathering here for a "Mom Celebration." Whether Miriam will be alive is doubtful, but it is the family getting together to remember this dear person.

My emotions are all over the place. I am not sure of much of anything. When the Nursing Home requested that we make arrangements with the funeral home for the remains, it hit pretty hard that they, the professionals in this stuff, know our time is limited.

So we signed papers and made plans and now we sit and wait. I spent several hours with Miriam today, Daughter Arline spent more. Tomorrow we'll do it again.

She has been a wonderful person, a great wife and a sterling mother and grandmother. She is loved and cherished.

Once I gave her a note: "If Love were fattening, you would weigh a ton." She was loved and she loved in return.

It's OK to sleep my precious.

With my brother Ben and sister Joyce. 

Joyce and I have both parents in common, but our father was killed a few months after Joyce was born. We all have the same mother.

The graves are of our parents on the right (Thatcher) and our maternal grandparents (Wilson) on the left.

I've posted this picture before.
Josh is now a Junior at the University of Southern California. I am exceedingly proud of him. I had  Thanksgiving dinner with Josh and his family. It was good.
Miriam was such a beautiful grandmother!

update

I am in Portland now with daughter 4.

A week  and a half ago I was in SanFrancisco and then LosAngeles with daughter 3. It was a week trip that we had planned a long time ago. 

Last weekend i spent many hours with Miriam. Not pleasant hours to be sure, but a good bit of time.

Since I saw her last she has forgotten how to feed herself. She will eat whatever is put into her mouth, and she swallows good. 

When I was with her she spend most of time slumped over in what seems like a coma. Her eyes were often open a bit. She looks like she is sleeping, and she sleeps a good bit of the time, but sometimes she looks asleep but she is not. In the 10 to 12 hours I spent with her she rallied enough to talk to me a little. She said she loved me. I told her I loved her and that we had had a great life together. She agreed, then put her head down and went out again. That happened two times. 

Sometimes those few seconds are all we have to live for. They are pretty precious. Mostly she does not talk, and when she does it is very quiet and impossible to understand, but her words make no sense either. 

I am told she will soon forget how to swallow. That is about the end. We absolutely will not have a feeding tube put in, there will be no major effort to keep her alive. Keep her comfortable and out of pain and let her go.

That is as hard to write as it is to live.