When I called my mom for her birthday, I asked her if she wanted me to come home. She told me it was up to me. I told her I knew she was tired, and asked her again if she wanted me to come home. She said, "Why don't you then." That was all I needed to hear. The next day I packed a few things, BooDuh and headed to Wisconsin.
I had a wonderful visit with my mom, and dad. Seeing Mom in the nursing home, very thin and frail was not easy at first. It reminded me of the times before when she had been in the hospital and I would feed her. Although those times, she was still strong. Mom's mind is sharp, but she didn't engage in conversation. She would answer a question if asked, and then lay there silently in her body. Her tiredness very visible.
In the weeks since I came home to Montana, Mom has gotten stronger. I have had some really wonderful conversations with her on the phone. Conversations that would lead you to believe she is going to live forever and a lifetime. I have been told she sleeps a lot, and that reminds me she is tired. Yes, tired, but not yet ready to let go and sleep the eternal sleep that is everyone's destiny.
I had thought of titling this post "The trip back home", but Wisconsin didn't feel like home to me anymore. It felt like a place I had been before, familiar, but not home. Everything was the same as it was when I lived there. Everything that is except me. I had changed. Grown perhaps?
