Last Days Before

December 1-7
I went to Jackson to be with Melanie and mother. Stayed the nights with Brenda Parmalee and her sweet dog MayBee.  Took care of getting Mother's affairs in order, revised the will and made sure the financial accounts had the right designations.  Park came for lunch on Friday.  During this visit I developed a deeper relationship with Brenda.

January 8-13
Left for Jackson after the Good Sam Exec Com meeting.  Mother was sleeping and not able to rouse that first evening, but she rallied and we had some good visits.  The best memory is our "Champagne Party" with Brenda, Melanie, Mother and me around her bed drinking champagne and laughing so much. It might be my last visit.  If so, it was very satisfying, very good.

Laura's and David's families went to visit Mother over MLK holiday.

February 13-18
Back to Jackson so Melanie could go out to Austin to be with Simon and the boys over President's Day holiday. Mother's is no longer able to transfer, even with help, from her bed to chair or toilet.  This is very hard for her to accept.  Every day we wonder if it will be the last.  She doesn't seem to be in pain and she has times when she is very alert.

From my FB post Feb 15:
Praying that my Jackson area friends are safe and dry. I’m in Jackson this weekend and the rising water is serious. We’re ok on this end of Grant’s Ferry. Also flooding in some areas of the Delta but I don’t have much information.

Feb 16, From my reflections on Be-A-Disciple Study, Jesus Unbound: (Mother was very much part of this discussion)

Last night we (Nathaniel, Jayna, mother, me) were visiting around mother’s bedside and our attention and conversation turned to the abstract painting that has been on her wall, wherever she has lived, for many years.  She had always said that she never tires of looking at it and often finds new and interesting images in it.  After reading Ch 6, Knowing the Truth, I reflected that the Bible can be compared to that painting. We may have looked at the painting many times and seen just to be a jumble of lines, shapes, spaces of dark and light.  But we all agreed that the longer one looks at it, rests with it, abides with it, the more images come into focus. The images were not created by the painter but through our interaction with the painting - our angle of view and the play of light. The painting hasn’t changed in any way, but as we live with it (abide with it), our understanding of it changes. And we don’t all see the same thing at the same time. As Jayna observed, it’s like finding shapes in the clouds.

Our response to the painting is a great metaphor for how I have come to understand the Bible.  The Bible hasn’t changed. My understanding of it is a constant interplay between the words, our circumstance in the moment, my background knowledge and the guidance of the Holy Spirit that illuminates the words for me. It is when I am able to open my heart (soul) and mind that the Bible can become a living instrument that points me to the Word of God - Jesus.

I left on February 18. I don't think Mother woke up to tell me good-bye.

On the evening of February 26, Ash Wednesday, Mother quietly stopped breathing and passed from this life.