Update on Mom: 5/24/2010
Monday, May 24, 2010 at 6:23PM | by Otter Another heartfelt thanks to those of you who have written about my mom.
Those of you who pray: it's hard not to think that those prayers stir up grace like an angel stirring up healing waters. Thank you.
A physical therapist was here earlier, and walked with her around the first floor of the house I grew up in. She was a gritty and determined Georgia country girl, getting to the front door, back to the room that is now her sick-room. Her slippers scuffed over floors where I used to send a small metal Batmobile skidding in pursuit of justice.
She ate a little oatmeal today, a bit of yogurt, some soup. You take what you can get. Colon cancer fights for its life like all living things, and renounces anything that might encourage the body against it.
(Thank you to my two oncologist friends: I know I personify these things. I love you. Now fuck off.)
Some genius should invent a Wii game for invalids: low impact, low energy, barely mobile.
I read MacDonald's Far Above Rubies to her: free on iPod Touch's Stanza app.
She's sleeping now. Dad is doing dishes: I offered, he said no. He wants to do things. He likes being in motion. I confess I like it too.
When you're doing things you can keep from thinking about The Big Picture. You're looking at details, like a short-seller on Wall Street, taking profits in the moment.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
You have this moment.
Live in it.
Cancer, George MacDonald, Oncology, Physical Therapy, Wii in Cancer 
Reader Comments (1)
I think if one actually is present in life, even the (or perhaps especially?) really hard moments have the most meaning and value. I don't generally know what that meaning is or how that value plays out, but I can feel that they are there somehow. Perhaps the value and meaning merely lurk at the corners where we sense them and can either choose to acknowledge them or ignore them, but ignoring them cheapens the moments which added up all together equal a life well-lived.