insight

EYESIGHT

By Jenn LeBlanc
jkerriga@mscd.edu

Goodnight, Mama

Francine Yvonne Barnum 1939-2005

If you have been reading my Eyesight columns for the past few weeks, you are aware that my mother is ill. Today, she is in hospice care, and I am on my way to take care of her, to sit with her, to make sure that she is not alone at this one time at the end of her life. I may be there for a couple days, maybe only a couple hours.

What I want to give to everyone who reads this is the chance to make amends, to make things right. We have been "prepared" for this moment for several months now. I still keep expecting her to wake up and talk to me. I still keep expecting the doctors to say "OK, you're healed." I still keep expecting my mom to come to Thanksgiving dinner and to have Christmas around the tree with us this year.

Even being "prepared," this death is sudden and horrible.

Make peace. Make love. Make friends. Every moment is precious; you never know when it will end, by lightning strike or by hardship. Days, weeks, months: they all boil down to moments, like a single photograph. Enjoy what you have; you never know when you may lose it.