I’m Home.

I’m Home because my mom is beginning to die.

I’m home for 12 days and two are over and all we did is eat and sleep, and smoke and talk. And 2 out of 12 days are gone already. And maybe that’s all that’s left.

My mom already died once, or maybe more times than that. Taken by peculiarity and random, inexplicable choices; that left me, and us all, reeling in chaos; questioning our own grasp on reality and sanity.

And here we are, approaching the real end. And there is a calmness that hasn’t been there for such a very long time.

Soon, it won’t be time in weeks, or days, but hours. Not so soon, but soon enough.

There was so little to hang on to, for so long. And now, for just a few days, there is something, and I have to get ready to let it go.

One year ago, it seemed no one ever died. And now it seems as though everyone will, soon. Sooner than I thought.

After this time, I might never sit in this place again. My grandparents home, as it has been, more or less, since 30 years before I was born, and for my entire life. Where Grandma DuCharme made maple brown sugar cake, and Papa canned beets and tended honeybees. Soon, this place will be only in my memory, and the memory of our aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbours. And my mother’s impeccable family tree wisdom will leave with her, only scraps of our familial memory remaining.

And then this part of life will be over. The last real home. The only mother.
_________

Postscript: My mother, Marilyn(e) Joanne Brennan née DuCharme, died on July 8th, 2016. I spent the 10 days immediately after this journal entry, plus 13 more with her, and had the honour of being with her when she passed.

My grandparents 1800 square foot home in London, Ontario, which housed them, six kids including my mother, a multitude of chickens, honeybees and other wildlife, and at times as many as two other families with children, as well as the childhood memories of 12 grandchildren and 14 great grand children, sold in July of 2018.