Build a Fire

My mother is dying.

For real this time. 

We think.

She's had a decade with Alzheimer's. Her conscious mind left her body years ago, but her heart still beats.

Now she can no longer swallow, eat or drink. She is effectively in a coma, sleeping all day, not responsive. In this state, she can feel no pain. I spoke with Rhonda today, the nurse who has been caring for my mother--and my father--for years.

"She could have a week," she said. I was surprised that anyone could live that long without water, but I guess it takes a while for the body to shut down. Plus, she is expending almost no energy. It doesn't make much fuel to keep what is left working.

I have a hard time believing my mother is going to die this time because we've had close calls before and she rallied and pulled through. My mother is a tough cookie. She survived Covid in June of 2020, early in the pandemic when it was slaughtering its way through nursing homes. In my mother's memory care unit that season, more than eighty percent of the residents died of covid. It was brutal.

And my mother lived. I think one of my Chicago aunts has a vicious prayer circle going for my mom 24/7. I am not sure what else would explain this and other medical miracles.

Yet, no one lives forever. This is her time, and her death is on her time. No one knows when she will pass. We can't plan or predict, which is so contrary to our modern lives, when we get upset when the planes, trains and the rains don't arrive on time. Death makes fools us all, making us wait and wonder without schedule. I am learning patience, waiting without worrying about logistics. When the time comes, I will figure it out.

My mother loved to build fires. Let me emphasize "build," not "start." "Starting" a fire means you light something up and let it go. "Building" a fire means you start the fire and keep it going. You maintain, tend and care to the fire.

When we would go camping as a family when I was a kid, we'd arrive at the site and my brother and I would first hit the woods and look for kindling while my parents set up the camper. Friday night, she'd start a fire that would last the weekend. To my mother, building a fire was an art form, with several factors. It needed to look good and burn hot with minimal smoke.

She passed her love of fire on to me. Pedro is a third generation pyro, learning to build fires from sticks and rocks in the wilderness.

Tonight I was talking to Pedro about his grandmother, among other things. He had a busy day, and I spent the whole day talking on the phone with family and friends, plus dealing with a flat tire. It is a quiet and cold and snowy night in Seattle. When I told him I was tired and debating between going to bed and starting a fire, he said without hesitation 

"Build a fire."

So I did. He must have known in some deep, spiritual place, that was exactly what I needed. 

A fire.