Confronting an end-of-life decision

My mother-in-law has had some difficulty lately. Because I am writing from my heart these last few weeks of Delaware Currents, I share this with you. It’s not full of traditional making-merry holiday spirit but it is full of what is the best of us humans.

Today, she ate pancakes.

Well, nibbled at them really.

Each bite, enjoyed, are a weight on my chest. She has decided that she will enter hospice.

Today.

It’s Nov. 30 and it’s snowing.

At 87, my mother-in-law was sufficiently conventional to fall and break her thigh bone, now three weeks ago.

Problems ensued, as they will do as we age and get injured.

Before, there had been a peaceful parsing of her days, touched with loneliness since my father-in-law died more than two years ago.

But hospitals are neither peaceful nor lonely.

Her children and honorary children kept watch beside her as the demand that she live clanked clinically louder ever louder, until it was deafening.

And she said, “No.”

Despite that her word was so different from Joyce’s Molly Bloom. Her “no” became just as triumphant.

To our ears, it rang and rang as the dead bell.

Until she taught us to really listen.

My heart holds its ache and her triumph. Compared to her three children and her beloved grandchildren, my love is newer. I remember when I fell in love with her — as the strong woman who welcomed me, a newcomer, with her always-wide open arms.

But today, I will celebrate her choice and learn how to welcome its wisdom.