Saturday

Today wasn't so bad.  My stomach knotted up the closer we got to Buckholts.  I'd alrady made my mind up that if Darrell wanted to talk trash about my mother in front of me, I wasn't going to have it.  I'd made up my mind that it's not just a cocktail of drugs, that we're well beyond blaming it on the drugs.  Phooey, I say!

However, when we arrived Darrell was in a very deep sleep and continued to drift in and out for the duration of our visit.  I brought a casserole and as I was later in the kitchen sticking it in the oven, mom caught me away from everyone and just about broke in two.  "I know it's not him!" she cried.

She was of course referring to his outbursts and cussing and ugliness, generally speaking.  She saidshe was changing his bandage this morning, changing the guaze that collects the stinky goo that runs from his ear and he began to cry and said, "I just want a ticket home, sis."

Mom began to weep openly now and said that was something that mentioned int he little booklet given to her by the hospice nurse, that people int heir very last days talk about "taking a trip".  Also this morning he said he'd wanted to see Aunt Mickey and Joyce; he said he knew it would be the last time.  Mom drove him over there and they had a nice visit.

Darrell's been driving her and dad both crazy after being placed on the steroids but of course I hated to see her like this as well.  It occurred to me though that if he had never gotten sick, they might still be not be speaking to one another--or barely as they often had in the past.  She once told me that the time they had gotten was just "precious".

"I couldn't do this again," she said.  "It would kill me."