Mom Countdown - Day 7

We drove home yesterday. They want to release Mom on Friday, but she can't go home. It was so good to be in my home, with Bill and Steve. Bill leaned in next to me and whispered, "I missed you SO much." I put my forehead on his forehead and we just sat there for a while. I'm scheduled to go back there Sunday noon to take over my shift, but we don't know for sure what's going to happen. How do I feel? Oddly peaceful and calm. My heart isn't skipping beats anymore, and my head doesn't pound. I can eat, and I took a three hour nap yesterday. I'm up to averaging 6 hours of sleep a night, 3 below my usual 9 hours a night. I hope Dad's sleeping a little bit.

Bill and I figured out that he's 2849 days old, as of today, not taking into account any leap years that add an extra day. Mom is 10.9 times older than Bill, having lived 31,162 days old as of today, not taking into account leap years - I guess that would add around 12 days to her total number, at the most. Bill thought he was a million days old, and I admit I was surprised when I figured out that at 85, Mom had only lived a little over 31,000 days. Doesn't that seem pretty short? In the big scheme of things, we humans don't really live that many days, so if you totally veg out for even one day, you're wasting approximately .003% of your life, and that's nothing to sneeze at. It's still significant, don't you think?

Today I am going through Mom's pictures, and picking out one for her obituary, as well as a series of photos to take over to Ritz to get duplicates made for a photo collage to put up at the funeral. I still need to buy some tagboard and spray adhesive. My sisters said I'm really good at this, and I wonder what makes them say that. I've never done anything like this before - nobody close to me has died. But I'm happy to do it - it gives me a purpose. I have work to catch up on, and the huge goddess party to plan (there's over 50 goddesses coming so far), but I just want to stay home and do the dishes, read "The Wild Trees" and make potato salad. Oh, and nap. But knowing me, I'll get everything done (and more) by the time I need to head west again.

P.S. Last night as I was falling asleep, I asked my Guys for comfort. I asked them to let me know they were with me, to let me feel them. I lit my candle and closed my eyes. 10 minutes later I opened them and ... the candle was out. I'm not alone.