Routine

We have fallen into a routine. After all the pain of the past several months, the agony of indecision and the horror of our descent into dementia with our mother, we now find ourselves at the Nursing Home every afternoon, styrofoam cups in our hands, Oprah on the big screen tv in the dayroom and our mother behind her walker as she asks yet again how long she has to stay. We tell her we'll take it day by day and remind her how weak she is and how sick she was. These are the moments when her eyes clear for the briefest of moments and she looks at my sister and at me. She looks at us and knows she won't go home again. She knows it and we know it and yet saying those words to her is impossible for us to do. Impossible for us to believe.

My routine has taken back its shape after the mayhem of the wedding. My days are once again filled with the problems of modern day healthcare and doing more with less for more and more patients and trying to make sure my staff has all they need to face their days. In meeting after meeting, phone call after phone call and email after email I work to cover it all, meet the needs and demands of those in need and an organization that has grown and is growing rapidly. The days are full. At the end of the day I shut down my computer, lock my office and drive to the Nursing Home where I sit with my mother, drink a cup of tea and watch Oprah. Never telling her the truth. The truth she already knows. That this is our routine now.