In flux

I'm sitting by mom's bedside, knowing she's going to leave us any day now. She gets weaker each day, and she eats practically nothing. Right now she's sleeping, but having outbursts every few minutes that make no sense. I have a feeling she's having some nightmares, but there's little I can do for her. I've already given her a dose of her pain medication and shifted her body again to prevent bedsores. I ask her whenever she is awake, if there's anything she needs or anything we can do to make her more comfortable, but there rarely is.

So I sit at her bedside and contemplate her life, my life and Lauren's life. The past, the present and the future. In the background the oxygen generator hums away, lulling me into deeper thoughts of where I am today and where I'm going tomorrow.

We (my husband, daughter and I) live in a house that we bought so that my mom could live comfortably with us after my dad passed away. Somehow I thought this house would be the "ONE", the "ONE" that we lived in until it was our time. The "ONE" that Lauren would grow up in. But as we get closer to my mom's time to go, I think each of us views this house in different ways, and neither of us really see living in it much longer after my mom is gone. Sometimes I worry my mom's cancer is driving us apart, and although I know this to be partly true, I also have faith in how much we mean to each other and that we'll make it through this together.

So that brings me back to the house, and sitting in a room in a house that I know we will probably leave soon, and I can't help thinking it will be hard enough on Lauren to lose her Grandmother, and I wonder how hard it will be on her to have to move out of this house, the one she does know, the one with the room she calls her own. And I'm back to thoughts of why we think we need to leave this house, and who that will benefit. Logically I know Lauren's small enough, that when she's bigger she'll never remember this house, but I also can imagine how difficult a move will be for her now. And watching pain is something I've seen enough of already.