11.18.2002 - 2:37 p.m.

Today my mother is in Illinois for her second last-minute trip this month. The first was to help move Aunt Rainey to a nursing home. This time it is to help move her back.

�So does that mean she�s getting better, or worse?� I ask yesterday, over the phone. I�m not sure why. I suspect the answer already.

�No, it just means�that she needs to be at home. That maybe at home she can Let Go.� I hear the capital letters in her voice and realize it�s because she can�t say �die.� I remember a summer job filing medical records, especially the doctors� notes you ran across every so often: �Patient has elected to suspend treatment and return home to family. Spouse has been given instructions.�--which meant that you moved the file to storage. Nobody ever said die.

�I�m sorry,� I say. Aunt Rainey isn�t actually my aunt; she�s my mother�s aunt. Finding out that she�s dying affects me in the same way I hate to hear that someone else is putting down their family pet. Which I feel bad for, but I�ve only met her twice, both times when I was very young. All I have is a dim memory of an old woman sitting in an arm chair, a pile of folded flesh, and especially the way the skin hung from the backs of her arms. I�d never seen anything like it, and wasn�t terribly interested in letting it touch me. I remember reluctantly kissing a flaccid, painted cheek.

I suddenly want to ask Mom a million questions. I don�t know if Aunt Rainey is the sister of my grandmother or grandfather. I don�t know if �Rainey� is short for something. I�m not even quite sure how to spell it. She sent me a card when I graduated college, and I remember calling home to ask, for the thank you note, but I didn�t absorb the answer.

�She isn�t eating much anymore, and she just can�t get any fluids in,� Mom is saying. �So I�m going over for a few days so she doesn�t have to deal with nurses visiting all the time. And everyone else out there [meaning Mom�s brothers and sisters] has too many little kids to juggle for a whole week.�

Aunt Rainey is my great-aunt. I find myself doing fractions in my head. Something like�one-eighth?�of my genes are hers, too. So something like half of my Lithuanian quarter could be Aunt Rainey.

�And who knows?� Mom continues. �She�s holding on by sheer will. Maybe if she�s in a familiar place, she�ll have the strength to beat it. She�s such a strong woman.� She pauses. �I�m so glad I have that from her.�

And I have it from you, I think, finally almost tearing up, not for the stranger I can imagine in a hospital room, skin completely deflated around a dying core, hooked up to tubes and machines and unable to do much beyond count ceiling tiles, but because I can tell Mom doesn�t want to realize that sometimes the strong thing is to Let Go, not to Hold On. I finally cry because Mom is going to take care of her, and knows on some level that what she is really doing is helping her die, and because I can�t imagine standing over someone I love, knowing that.

My Aunt Rainey is dying. But when she dies, I don�t think it will be out of weakness. If she is a strong woman, then she will die because it was time. Because she will have done what she was here to do. Strong people make their own choices, always, and knowing that is enough comfort for me. But I am not the one who needs it, and I don�t know if saying that to Mom would have helped or not.

I didn�t say enough before we got off the phone. I promised to call home to check on my dad and brothers while she is gone, and I know that helps her, but I should have also said she could call me if she needed to talk. Maybe I still will, if I can get her number from Dad tonight. She knows, but that�s not the same thing.

-stonebridge

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