(no subject)
The call came about 8:15 yesterday (Sunday) morning. Martha's mother, Goldie, surrendered at last. I don't have much detail. I guess she was fighting for breath to the very last; she's always been a fighter and a survivor. She didn't let go easily, but too many systems had failed. Her life started out hard and lonely. It ended hard, but not lonely. In between, she worked hard to make life better. Not just her life, but lots of lives, a few as wife and mother, many more as teacher.
The end wasn't peaceful or painless, as I would have wished for her. I think that what I wished for her was that she would have stopped trying so hard a lot sooner. When does a person decide it's hopeless, that there will be no recovery? Heinlein has a wonderful statement about the futility of hindsight; I'll have to try to find it.
So we spent all day Sunday getting Martha ready to leave for Wichita this morhing. That would have been much easier and quicker if the plumbing hadn't quit accepting the output of the clothes washer last week, or if the plumber -- *ahem*, "Service Technician" -- had been able to come Saturday instead of Sunday, or indeed if said pl- uh, service tech, who finally arrived around 5 PM Sunday, hadn't found the situation under the basement floor to be much worse than anticipated. I now have a lovely new sculpture of black plastic pipe in one corner of the basement, a stop-gap rerouting. The fundamental problem -- 35 years of black goo in an inaccessible 35-foot horizontal pipe -- has not been solved. Now I've had two plumbers tell me the problem is inherently unsolvable, and I just plain don't believe it. But I don't have time to deal with it now. I've paid a great deal of money for a temporary solution. Six months ago I paid much less for a temporary solution; I rather hope that paying five times as much will give me a lot more than six months.
Interesting, I think, that it is far easier to complain about plumbing than it is to say anything even remotely meaningful about death.
Goodbye, Goldie. I doubt that the few years in which I knew you were your best. Your best must have been awesome.
The end wasn't peaceful or painless, as I would have wished for her. I think that what I wished for her was that she would have stopped trying so hard a lot sooner. When does a person decide it's hopeless, that there will be no recovery? Heinlein has a wonderful statement about the futility of hindsight; I'll have to try to find it.
So we spent all day Sunday getting Martha ready to leave for Wichita this morhing. That would have been much easier and quicker if the plumbing hadn't quit accepting the output of the clothes washer last week, or if the plumber -- *ahem*, "Service Technician" -- had been able to come Saturday instead of Sunday, or indeed if said pl- uh, service tech, who finally arrived around 5 PM Sunday, hadn't found the situation under the basement floor to be much worse than anticipated. I now have a lovely new sculpture of black plastic pipe in one corner of the basement, a stop-gap rerouting. The fundamental problem -- 35 years of black goo in an inaccessible 35-foot horizontal pipe -- has not been solved. Now I've had two plumbers tell me the problem is inherently unsolvable, and I just plain don't believe it. But I don't have time to deal with it now. I've paid a great deal of money for a temporary solution. Six months ago I paid much less for a temporary solution; I rather hope that paying five times as much will give me a lot more than six months.
Interesting, I think, that it is far easier to complain about plumbing than it is to say anything even remotely meaningful about death.
Goodbye, Goldie. I doubt that the few years in which I knew you were your best. Your best must have been awesome.