One of the most beautiful things about relationships is how different people meet different areas of need for one another.
It’s not as if we deliberately pick and choose for such specificity, either; it just comes together somehow. And yesterday, this remarkable attribute manifested in a glaring way when my mother asked Dear Husband, “This is the end for me, isn’t it.”
She would never have said that to me, I don’t think. There’s just too much emotion attached to our relationship. Amazing how that aspect would make it impossible to express something so emotionally charged.
But Dear Husband, with his astoundingly bottomless patience and caring, provides a safe, utterly non-judgmental space for my mom. He always has. And their relationship — entirely different from that of my own with her, or my daughter’s — fills a need that she clearly has right now.
His answer? “It’s close.”
Clearly she now understands what’s happening to her… in part, no doubt, to the medications they’re able to provide her there at the hospice.
I’m very glad, for her sake, that the confusion and paranoia seem to have cleared — or at least, they had done so at some point last night. (I’ll have a better handle on that when I get over there to be with her shortly.)
She hates not being clear… maybe more than she hates not being in control. Thus, as sad as I was when DH shared this interaction with me, it’s comforting to know she felt safe enough with someone to put such a difficult thought out there. And that her mind had cleared enough to voice it.
I think my one wish for her at this point is peace for her spirit. She’s so very strong — a veritable force of nature — and this entire process must be incredibly hard.
The human soul is remarkable, is it not?