Ringing The Bell

I'm with mom tonight. Tired, emotionally and physically, beyond any saying.  This will be a short, and probably weird post.

My mom's father was a county ordinary (judge). He had this brass bell that belonged to a father or uncle or something: a schoolmaster in the same county.  I should pin down these details.

It's sitting beside mom's bed. Now and again a little "clang" comes from her room. I go and see what's up: a need for a pillow to be moved, an IV that feels off, a need to know that dad got home alright.

She showed her first flash of survivalism tonight: they were putting in a dextrose, protein and lipid drip. It looks like a milk-shake. She made me pray over it so nothing harmful would come in.

We're all inundated with feeling.

I spent some time with students today, talking about papers, and felt mostly abstracted.  One really good conversation with a future doctor, and that shook me out of my inwardness enough to really sit up: I wanted to say, "Stay sharp.  Be passionate about healing.  Sweat the details.  Be amazing."  I don't think I needed to say any of that.

My band played a gig to benefit a kid with cancer tonight, and I felt the whole time like I was floating in some other world. I wanted to be out of there, to come here. 

So here I am. 

There's this scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in which the four hobbits, back from the edge of death, one of them about to die again, sit around a table looking on the unthinking, unfeeling, ungrateful world they have helped to save. They look at one another, and half in sadness, half in solemn joy, raise their mugs.

As surely as we love, we become bereft. Even if she survives this, we will look on each other with a fresh solemnity.

Update on Saturday, May 1, 2010 at 11:37PM by Otter

My friend Rachel writes, "I remember when [her husband's] dad was dying. We rotated round-the-clock for 2 weeks. It was simlutaneously one of the most horrific and divine experiences of my life. I now cherish every moment I got to spend with him. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to soak it in, all of it."

This.