The future grows from the stories we tell.
The last thing I wanted to do was impose on her heavenly hereafter. She deserved some time to do what she wanted. I promised I’d let her be dead in peace. But eighteen months into her eternal rest, I needed my mother real bad.
For all the times that that machine let us down, failed to make our life much easier… it came through when it really mattered.
I discovered a secret about my parents and wanted desperately to share the story. But first, I had to weigh the rules my mother lived by against her last request to me. It was a transformative process.
My son made aggressive air quotes around the words as he told me about the assignment. His voice trembled with outrage, “There were pictures of dragons and fairies and unicorns and the whole thing was about how those things weren’t really real!”
He thought for a minute, “Well… I think it’s to… swim… and to laugh… and to love. Yeah, I think that’s why we live. How about you, mom?”
