Back in June, my mom had a stroke. It was her fourth, and while she recovered well from the previous three, this one was different. This one set off three days of continuous seizures before the neurologist could get them under any kind of control. This one put her in neuro ICU for two weeks, then in an acute care hospital for another six weeks to get her off the ventilator. She's 89. This time, she is not coming back.

She came back to the nursing home where she's been living since December 2020, but she no longer has the balance even to sit up in her wheelchair, and any attempt to move her body, let alone do PT, made her scream. She could (and can) talk a little; she understands what she hears and smiles or frowns appropriately. But she can't open her eyes; can't see the sky that is so important to her, and more and more she's sleeping. It's pretty obvious that she's shutting down.

Last Thursday I signed her up for hospice. She needs pain management more than anything else. Warned of a risk of addiction, I laughed. Why should I worry about addiction now? She's dying; she's by definition not going to have to live with addiction or its consequences.

She's 15 minutes from my house if traffic is bad, so I'm able to spend as much time with her as possible. Sometimes it's a visit; more often it's a vigil, sitting beside her, holding her hand if the can tolerate it, letting her hand rest on mine if the weight of my hand on hers causes pain. Visit or vigil, it needs to be done.

Sometimes I fall apart and cry. More often I sing; if she's hearing me she enjoys that, and I have a far greater repertoire than I realized. Folk songs, 60s anti war and protest songs, ballads, filk,...I sing until my voice gives out for that day, usually about 3 hours. Every so often I turn around to find the staff standing by the door listening; one woman tells me that when I sing, "the presence of G*d is in the room." I take it as meaning I create an area of peace, which is what I'm trying to do.

I have such mixed emotions. I don't want to let my mother go, though I know I need to. And yet...I have to acknowledge that it will be a relief. She won't be in pain, nor trapped by a failing body. For myself, I have been responsible for her since 1996, and her caregiver since 2010. I will be able to put that down. My family will be able to do things we've back-burnered for years, because of that responsibility. So, like everything else, it's complicated.

But the wheel turns, as wheels will. And my mother's turn is coming to its end.

My uncle D - my mom's best friend's husband - has left this earth.

My friend V called the other day to say that her dad wasn't doing well. He'd had a fall, broken his arm, and then been combative about rehab. Uncle D. combative is just totally out of character, which was why she was worried. She wanted her dad to go to the hospital. Her mom, Aunt J., was convinced if he went to the hospital it would be to die, but agreed to let V take him yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon he had a massive stroke. When the CT scan came back, half his brain was mush. So they disconnected the machinery, and he was gone a few minutes later. I suspect his spirit had already left.

Uncle D and Aunt J were the people I modeled myself on consciously, when I figured out at about age 12 that the dynamic in my family wasn't healthy or normal. Mom sent me to stay with them for the summer that year, and it was a revelation. Logic worked. Nobody screamed at anybody. They argued, sure, but they didn't raise their voices. They respected each other. And on and on. D was the quiet strength that everyone counted on. He didn't say a lot, but it was always worth paying attention to. He was very affectionate with his wife and kids, which included me, and shared in the child-rearing, which was not the standard in the 1960s. J was the general, keeping everything organized, but D was right there with her. I still don't think I could have chosen better role models.

There won't be a funeral; Aunt J doesn't want one. I'd be going if there was one, 7 hour drive be damned. If anyone deserved my respect, it was he. I'll try to turn this into something more eloquent to send to Aunt J when I can. But right now? I'm having a hard time picturing a world that doesn't have him in it. Nothing to Aunt J, who was married to him for 63 years, or his kids, but I will miss him dearly.

Fair winds and following seas, Uncle D. I love you.

worldofwords is holding a prompt call with the theme " "Aces & Eights". Go over and check it out, maybe leave a prompt.

What do you do when the computer that needs to reboot is your car?

Technology and I have a love-hate relationship. Back in the days of mainframes, I could nearly make them sit up and talk, but I lost access when I got out of college and was hopelessly behind very quickly. I made an attempt to pick it up again in the first years of the current century, but got side-tracked again by a job offer in my field. Now? Now it's a magic box.

Same thing with cars. In the mid 70s, I worked on my own car. I was very good at diagnosing problems even when I didn't have the tools to fix them, and generally managed to find mechanics that would listen to a female. When I could do my own work I did, which on one memorable occasion included rewiring my car. Now? I can identify the things under the hood, but I have no idea how they function. It's a magic box.

And there is one additional factor. I kill electronics. One year watch batteries? Two weeks tops. Cell phones? The warranty is my friend. Digital watches blinked and expired. Light bulbs have about half their projected life if in regular proximity to me. I know people who have much more extreme versions of those issues, but my level is enough to be annoying in current society.

Which brings me back to my car. I knew when I bought it 4 years ago that I was essentially piloting a computer. I figured it was probably insulated well enough to be safe from my personal electrical field. Well, it may have been, but it has now crashed for the second time. The first time was in February, and it was bitterly cold. Temps well below zero Farenheit (-17 C), and wind chills that took it down further. I parked at a local restaurant, went in and got food, and came out half an hour later to find that the car would not turn over and could not be jumped. It had a new battery, so that shouldn't have been an issue, but - cold weather. I had it towed to the dealer, only to have it start right up the next morning. They tried to find the issue, but failed.

It is not cold now; it is indeed comfortable weather to be out and about in short sleeves. And it did it again, this time with much less cause. I had been driving it, pulled into the drive-through at the pharmacy, and as is my habit, turned off the engine. I see no point in buring fuel just to sit still, unless necessary to keep warm. Got my prescriptions, tried to start my car, and...nothing. Not a sound. Couldn't shift into neutral so that my husband and son, who came to rescue me, could push it out of other people's way. Couldn't even get out of the car, as I was very close to a brick wall. So I called a tow who was mercifully close. He tried to jump it. Nothing; not a twitch, nary an engine noise. It was acting like a computer that had frozen up and needed a hard reboot.

Given it's prior performance, I simply had it towed home, which was a matter of a mile. We'll see what it does in the morning. If it starts right up, I'll have the mechanic check the obvious suspects, those being the starter, the alternator and the ignition. But I'm in sympathy with Harry Dresden driving a totally non-computerized V.W. bug, and if the mechanic can't pin it down this time? Well, I expected this to be the last car I ever bought, but I might have been wrong about that, too.

What do you think of when you think of a bird feathering its nest? Soft, warm, cozy, comforting - shelter for baby creatures. Now turn that into stories. dialecticdreamer is writing gentle fiction over on her page. Give her a prompt; get a couple of pages of hot-cocoa in your day. It will run until midnight or so Pacific Time tonight.

I haven't thought of a prompt of my own yet, but hey, I can still boost the signal, right?

Today is Poetry Fishbowl day for July, with a theme of "truth is stranger than fiction". Go to ysabetwordsmith's page and check it out.

It's Magpie Monday over on dialecticdreamer's site, with a theme of "unconventional parenting". Go give her a prompt and get a small story. Boost the signal and get more story. Sponsor stories and we all win!

CW: Much unhappiness, some for good cause. If your own mental state isn't good for seeing someone else's distress, read something else.

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I just spent 3 days in Chicago with friends I haven't seen in 2 years. We're all fully vaccinated and extremely careful in general, so it wasn't unduly risky.

It was wonderful. We talked, and ate, and napped when we wanted/ needed to, and didn't go anywhere except a single run to the Japanese grocery for sushi. We got a hotel suite with a kitchenette complete with dishwasher, which had a sitting room with a foldout couch and a bedroom with 2 beds. It was a lovely, gentle reintroduction to seeing people in hug-space.

Running up to it, I found I really wasn't thinking about anything else. I have email I still haven't answered from before I headed out; hopefully I'll get to the rest of that tomorrow. I made packing lists. I baked. I asked M.F., who has a colostomy, what she can and cannot eat. I asked M.P. what kitchenware I needed to bring. There was a lot of "remind me to tell you about." We agreed that games might be fun, but never touched them. We just talked, and enjoyed being with someone that we hadn't seen every day.

And we listened. All of us listened, and responded. That was the biggest thing, and I didn't even realize it until I got home and it was back to business as usual. I was heard. It's hard to explain, but the contrast was huge. No one was focused on a computer, or behind headphones, or paying so much attention to a show's dialog that a question asked from 2 feet away doesn't even register. We've gotten through this year by creating our own little bubbles. But we need to change that, and I don't know that I'd have even seen it if I hadn't spent 3 days at our own little micro relaxicon.

It's almost Passover, and that has me thinking about the whole story, and the way we tell it. "They didn't have time to let the bread rise" we say, "and so they baked unleavened cakes".

For children who have only ever had bread from the grocery store, that means about as much as "once upon a time". But for those who have seen their parents bake bread, it can give a framework. Bread made with modern dried yeast rises in an hour or so. It usually gets mixed, kneaded, rises once, gets shaped, rises again, and gets backed. All that takes between four and six hours, depending on how fast the baker is.

Using a sourdough type starter, which is what the Israelites would have had in a time before commercially packaged yeast, ovens with thermostats, and all the other things we take for granted in a first world country, they would mix the dough and knead it with some dried dough from the previous day's bread, then set it aside to get light and puffy. That's a slower process, but it would still be ready to shape in about six hours. Shaping flat rounds and baking them on a hot stone doesn't take long at all; maybe 3-5 minutes per portion.

So when they didn't have time to let their bread rise, it means that they had to leave in under six hours. Whatever stage the dough was at, that was what was going to be baked. And by extension, they didn't have time to plan anything else, either. All they could do was grab whatever food they had - including that hastily baked dough - and whatever was of value that was easily portable, and GO. No looking for a favorite pot lent to a neighbor. No time to let a child say goodbye to a playmate. No taking apart a loom in anticipation of making fabric somewhere else. Grab your family, grab food, grab weapons if you have them, grab items you can put in a basket, and run. It isn't quite as extreme as fleeing a wildfire, but it isn't far off.

And what makes that real and immanent for me is that I bake bread, and I know how long it takes to rise.