The Sky is Gray

The sky is gray, with tinges of smokey black and off-white. Wind gusts, bending bendable plants nearly to the ground, spraying falling leaves like missles released from fighter jets. Rain comes in splatters and squalls, slinging cold, wet needles of water everywhere.

I am at my sister's place in the pretty town of St. Marys. She is away on volunteer duties, with a paid staff member. The house hums with life support to run the heat, humidifer, refridgerator, stove clock....all things that operate via electricity, which is pumped without interruption into each and every home.

Earlier we walked to the Community Center to swim in a bromide salt pool to the tune of $4.75 a pop. How do people with less disposable income access these facilities? Apparently they can go to whomever is in charge of such things, cap in hand, to say they want to have their children/family/themselves enrolled in an aquatics program. Imagine, if you will, just what it would be like to have to beg to swim in the local pool ~ the pool that your taxes help to maintain. Yes, you have a job. Yes, you pay rent. Yes, you can cloth and feed your family. But. There is little left over for outside activities. Like swimming.

The sky is gray, as is the day and my thoughts, as they turn to the many people who scud across the vast sky of indifference to those who struggle, daily, to make ends meet.

Moving Mother

I get a call from my nearly 83 year old mother: her long awaited move to an Assisted Living Village has been confirmed.

Would I please come over and help make the move? Yes, mother, I will.

I travel from my little abode on Vancouver Island to the mainland via ferry. This trip takes a minimum of four hours - one way. Mother is there to pick me up at the terminal; hands me the keys to her tiny car; slowly settles herself in the passenger seat and begins to issue directives........which do not stop for nine l-o-n-g days.

I organize: find movers; pack boxes; move small items; keep us (and the resident cat) fed; remind her that all services must be notified; acquire address change cards from the post office; keep track of three sets of keys; help set up the new place and clean the old one, all the while trying to maintain my sanity.

I will not go into more detail, suffice it to say that we have spent better times together.

Returning home, I fall into bed and sleep for two days.

Upon resuming my life, the first thing I do is to amass a pile of my own unused stuff to give away. Secondly, I vow to steadily decrease my already meager material things till everything I own will fit into the back of one pick-up truck. Most importantly, I contact friends to talk with, hoping to acquire a better personal perspective.

The event is as stressful, if not more so, as any other major changes we encounter during our lifetime. And maybe worse, knowing that my mother is preparing to die.