My mother is in hospice care. She is suffering from congestive heart failure. She will not again come to dinner at my house or spend Christmas with us.

But on and off in these hours and days, we are offered a quality of time and experience that I have never known.

When my mother was first admitted to the hospital , she was suffering greatly. From sleep she called in pain. If we touched her, she recoiled. She begged for help but there was nothing we could do. Giving pain medication would lower her dangerously low blood pressure. It took the doctors six days to understand the complexities of her physical state.

Now we are relieved of the goal of recuperating. We can alleviate her pain in the natural process of dying.

A few nights ago when we visited late—I seem to be taking the late-night, bedtime shift—I reported to her on the crescent moon outside. I was holding her hand. She looked at me.

“You’re all the moon I need,” she said.

And then we listened to Beethoven (on You Tube) and her eyes lit up with familiarity. In her earliest career, she studied piano in college and taught music. Later, in the twilight of her room, we gazed into each others’ eyes for several minutes. We have never before looked at each other so.
“Thank you,” she said.

I held her hand again until she slept.