Here we are, in 2023. It’s always lovely, going into the new year, to think of all the good that’s to come, changes to be made, new starts, and new chances. This New Year’s Eve was lovely, spent with old, good friends in England. That all seems so far away from where I sit today, the 4th of January, back in my big familiar chair at home in France. You see, as we were ringing in the new year in England, mom was feeling very unwell in California. Someone at her care home finally noticed and called an ambulance. Had they not, she likely would have died in her sleep sometime between 2022 and 2023.

What a shock it is to write those words, especially after telling so many friends that she was doing well. I will from now on be so much more suspicious of doing so, never again talking of her wellness as though it were a confirmed, decided thing. She is doing very poorly, I will say, but we stay positive and optimistic that she will continue to stay healthy. I guess I could have, should have, made more of an effort to call her, to check in on her during the holiday season. We’d talked, but only on Christmas Day. I thought of her often, taking photos to share with her, a bit of the English countryside that she would love, pictures from inside a pretty country church. Thank God she is still alive, that I can write these words, that she has, that I have, another chance. To think of her all alone, feeling quite unwell, it’s just terrible. I know she wants, and deserves, so much more than that. Yet here I am, nine hours away, in a noisy, imperfect, and gratitude-filled house, wondering if this is, in fact, my last chance to change everything and do the right thing for me, for her, as these are, in some undefined amount, yet most certainly, her final days.

Today I spoke to her, hating to hear how desperate she is to eat something. She is not allowed solid food yet, and I am not sure why, but can imagine it has something to do with the severity of the situation. These little signposts are really red flags, warning signs that say this gravity should not be underestimated. Heaviness, pulling you down, eluding to the deepness of a grave itself. For now, I know the drill, I remember it too clearly. Yet at the same time it hurts to let them play out so I cut the memories short, the pivotal moments of degradation that moved towards the end of my father’s life. Water on the lung, intubation, pain management, and then finally letting go. How quickly the situation can change, and we must change along with it, changing our expectations, our hopes, our acceptance of what is happening to our person that we love so much. They are not who they once were, they are broken down, in her case today to someone so desperate to eat, to chew something. I can just from this point, this place a million miles away, pray and hope and believe that she will get better, the medicine will work, she will beat this. But I know, deep in my heart and mind, that if the signs show something different, I mustn’t ignore them, I must just go and be there and hold her hand until the end. I must be faithful for her, present for her, unafraid for her, believe for her that this will be ok, as a better life awaits her and we will see each other there.

Now I am not afraid as I once was. I mean, I am terrified, but I am not afraid of feeling the feelings. This is sobriety speaking. This is not wanting to escape, because I know that escaping just prolongs the inevitable. It always comes back, once you sober up. So you can either face it or get fucked up again. Now, I guess, I am facing things. I have a chance now to face things as they come, in a strange serenity. I never faced things as my father was dying. I didn’t know how, I didn’t have the years of experience I have now. It was all too shocking, and I didn’t have the support I needed. My mother wasn’t able to deal, to help him, so I had to step in. I had to keep her away from him because she was so toxic and awful to him, even as he lay broken and dying in the hospital. I had to have her removed from the hospital. And then, a month or so later, I had to tell her to come back. It’s time Mom, you need to come, I said. Nothing that a daughter should ever have to say. Come now Mom, you need to say goodbye. And I brought her in, and left her with him, left them together, and I am not sure that either of them knew what to say. Not sure if there was any great release, great forgiveness. I hoped that there would be, but I wasn’t sure. I can still hear my uncle’s voice, well-meaning, he would say, your mom and dad never should have gotten married. So where does that leave me? Regardless of the mistake it may have been, it was my story, for without them, who am I? For however flawed and terrible their union was, they were my parents, my family, I was half of each of them and of everyone that came before them. Wasn’t I at least enough to make them worth something, together?

Each time I returned home to France from a visit to the US to see her I’ve experienced a crushing depression on my re-entry. So many times, seven I believe in the past year and a half, I have made the journey, and each time I have re-entered my life here with such a great shock that I felt as if I were coming back to a life that was not mine. Part of that depression is feeling a tremendous dissonance between the life of my naissance – of my past, my roots, my birth, and my history – and the life that I have created, willingly and consciously, here in France. My life here is the result of many choices made one after the other since deciding to marry and move here. This path began in 2009 upon meeting my husband and we’ve been on it ever since. Now we have three wonderful children, new and old souls, whose lives we are fully responsible for. Everything we do effects them, good and bad. This is a journey, being parents, and the better we get at being good people the better parents we are to them. This is not easy, I see mistakes I have made and I vow to do better, on a daily basis.

Now I am again faced with a huge decision – and this scare seems to be fate telling me that I must make a choice before it is too late. No choice is still a choice and I don’t want to end up wishing I’d had more time with her, or done more, or been there. So it seems I must make an active choice now before I miss my chance. This crushing depression I feel each time I return is also because I am going from being aware – of the fragility of my mother’s life and life in general – to being lulled back into a necessary denial of the ticking clock. Once I re-enter life here everything marches on to the rhythm of the school calendar, the weekly routine, the daily movements that dictate life. So easy it is to forget that actually this might not just continue on, this could all abruptly be over, with no going back, no second chance, no do-over.

With that abrupt end my history ends too, with no parents, no family home, no saga of those that came before me, the ones that made the rules and played the roles in the great tragedy that was my parents. There is no happy ending here. However the more tragic it would be if my mother dies alone, unnoticed, afraid to take up space, to complain loud enough that she might be heard and listened to as though her life depended on it – because it did.

Now I am faced with a decision. Do I make the best possible situation out of this terrible situation – to give my mother, my sister, my self the chance to write our own story, our own ending to this saga that even, especially recently has proved to be almost unbelievable? The choice is obvious, it is the commitment that is difficult, as it seems so overwhelming. It is as simple as a flight and a journey, but it is frightening to think what it might change, for me, for her. It requires complete commitment on my part – to care for and be responsible for my mother. I must submit to being caught in her vortex, to her covert narcissism. Except this time the perceived need is actually very real. As her life, her story and mine, completely depends on it.

For now, I will pause and let this all soak in. It is not often in life that we have the chance to face death so head on. I am trying to see this too as a blessing, but at the moment it is difficult, and overwhelming. Today I baked a cake that everyone likes and promised the kids we would eat it fifteen minutes ago. So for now I will go and do that.