Home...Home...

     The last two words I heard my dad utter as he slipped from consciousness to coma were:

                                                                "Home...Home..."

     "You're going home, Daddy...We'll get you there."

     His wife pulled me aside to say "Don't promise him that. The doctor says he wouldn't survive the ambulance ride." (Their home was in Carthage; my dad was in what was then Baptist Hospital.)

     "That's not the home he's referring to," I say, tears streaming down my face. I knew what home my daddy meant.

     My daddy died the way he lived. He packed his precious, passionate soul into every moment lived...A more spiritual man never walked this planet (well, ok, that's an exaggeration) but if anybody walked a spiritual walk it was my dad.  By the time they figured out it was cancer, he had precious little time left, which left me dropping everything to spend what time I could with him in what turned out to be just a few short weeks.

      I remember the call like it was yesterday...A Monday morning; I was on deadline for a column when his call came in. Nothing new for him to call me on his way to his 10 o'clock meetings, but I was behind this Monday...decided to let him roll to voicemail.  He left a message saying he was having breakfast with his friend, Doc, and would call me when finished. I made a mental note and went about my writing. True to his word he called back just after 11. Only this wasn't the tone I was expecting...and it sure as heck wasn't the message.

     Someone reminded me just this morning of something Dad used to say:

                                     "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems."

     Some days I do acceptance better than others. Some life experiences, however,  come with a ton of struggle.

     As I watch a world in turmoil I feel bad for what I'm about to write, for clearly nothing I'm living right now compares to children starving in Bangladesh or Serbians praying to get out of a war-torn country...That said, I am living the toughest experience of my 55-year-old life, and as fate would have it, the words that now come to haunt are once again, "Home... Home..."

     It's been building for awhile, but this weekend we placed our mother in assisted living. (Let the record reflect, she is not happy. For anyone who might speak with her, she is furious with both of her children right now and it breaks my heart to watch someone so fiercely independent long for the life she once knew and more specifically, her home.)

     We've told her it's temporary...that if she can muster the strength to walk and get about on her own, for goodness sake, YES, we too want you home (and I intend to put forth every effort to get her there if we can but make the hires, but neither her house or mine are properly suited. Read: staircases and 70's type tubs).  Sadly, the reality of her physical strength vs. the her headstrong nature have come to blows and the only one in more pain that she is right now is me. (Not to throw a pity party here, but I've talked to so many people who have lived through the same and I regret I wasn't more there for them ...If there's a support group for this, I'll join it.)

     Like a parent helping their kid set up that first dorm room, I spent my weekend hanging clothes and drapes and unpacking bedding. The sadness of facilitating the move was exhaustive both physically and emotionally. It came with the realization that life is never going to be the same, and my mother (to hear her tell it) never happy again.  In the kid's case, it's their first real stab at freedom...the launch of their own independence. (Mom's college years were her favorite, and believe you me, she isn't buying this dorm-room, send-your-kid-off-to-school analogy for one second, but it's all I got. I'm grasping here.)

     Given my kids are of the 4-legged variety, I can't imagine the bittersweet sadness of that goodbye. Though you know you'll see them on holidays and heck, they might even come back for good, that empty nest thing I'm told is very real and very painful. Still and so, it's the keen awareness (made more keen by repeated pleas to "Take me home! I just want to go HOME") that will haunt me till the day I die.

     The folks at the place offer strength. They assure me that if I'll but back off...give her time to get used to new routines, recognize the value of having help at the pull of a cord...meet new friends and try new experiences, it will all work out. ("But they don't know my mom," I think to myself. And I debate whether to erase her messages or save them as proof.)

     One thing's for sure. We don't like aging in this country, and as a result, we spend far too little time planning for it. As I watch my mom... ache for my mom... fight for my mom ( and WITH things like wheelchairs and walkers) I can't help but wonder "Who plans for this?" And then (more selfishly) "What's a single girl do?" after all, if the next 20 go as fast as the last 20 did, I'm there myself.

     And when that day comes, the question becomes: Who am I gonna call when my one and only wish in the world is to go home...home...