"So, I am dying. That sucks, but we are all going to die at some point. I believe it’s called ‘the end of one’s life’. I can remember thinking when I visited Gloria in the hospital many years ago that life invariably leads to death. That’s easy to say when you’re thirty. The impact of that statement has a little more import now that I’m 67, and know that my time is very limited."

Musetta Floria Meyers Gigliotti O'Donnell wrote that in the last week of her life. Very few of us look forward to death until the pain of existence becomes too invasive; however it is something we all face. Sometimes, life ends suddenly and unexpectedly, but for many it's a long process of gradually failing and knowing that the inevitable is getting closer with each tick of the universal clock.

We received word a few days ago that my mother was being hospitalized - low blood pressure, low oxygen levels, and a number of other things that led me to believe she was experiencing congestive heart failure. Well, that was the diagnosis. She's 93 by the way. She's been suffering from (probably) alcohol induced dementia for the last 30 - 40 years. The old memories are there for the most part, but short term memory can be measured in minutes.

Well, they got her on oxygen and Lasik, and some other things, and she came back to her home yesterday. My closest sister in years who shoulders much of the burden along with my younger brother says that she may have weeks, maybe months. So the end draws near. I wasn't aware of her alcoholism until the last 20 years or so. My youngest sister would come home from high school and find her well into the sherry each afternoon. I was in the Air Force by that time, so I never picked up on it until she stopped traveling with my father. We began to realize something was wrong as her behavior got stranger and stranger.

I guess facing a family member's mortality is almost as difficult as facing your own, maybe even more so. After all, when you die, you don't have to linger over it and wonder if things could have been better. I fell out of love with my parents many, many years ago. Being forcefully dragged (literally) to church was just one of the little things out there that contributed to it. They didn't attend church at the time. Not excelling in school like my cousins, and having my face rubbed in it was another. I know now that I have a learning disability. The term didn't even exist in those days. There were thousands of little things that wedged us apart. They were very homophobic until just recently. My sister coming out was something that I don't think they really understood. 'She' was just my sister's housemate. In a way, I'm glad I didn't understand my TG 'problem' until after I left home. If I had expressed how I felt, I know the 'treatment' I would have gone under would have been hell. They were 'charter' members of the John Birch Society to give you an idea of what sort of politics I grew up with.

Birth invariably leads to death. My mother's death will, in a way be a relief. It will be a sad time, but I will not shed any tears. I didn't shed any at my father's death either. I would hope that no one sheds any at my death. It's natural to worry about our mortality. Maybe immersing one's self in alcohol or drugs is a way to cope. I hope I don't get that far. Meanwhile, mortality is lurking out there. Tick, tick, tick....

Portia