Again, it has been a week that we have been in here. Another week that this fierce woman, such a fighter, has beat the odds. She has been given hours every day for a week. My hope is that she is able to do her work to leave this earth, in her mind, spirit, and soul. I had seen this going very differently. Not sure what I’d expected but I’m pretty sure that it didn’t involve my mother dying like this. We’ve worked so hard to give her the dignity to die in her own place, on her own terms. Yet here we are, all rooming in at the hospital, free of the imbedded comforts of home, where it’s easy to grab the book, music, or snack that you need to calm things down. For we are on a constant state of alert, and it is exhausting our nervous systems, all of them. I am not at all prepared for the shock that awaits me. My mother, my living breathing mother, who has been an enigma to me for so long, will no longer be, shortly. I am facing the The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Eyes of Someone Living. *

I think of this idea a lot. Is there enough flexibility in the sober mind to be at peace with the cognitive dissonance brought about by the idea of death? Can we be at peace with science and spirituality? This is a space in which art can help us to be. It is not this artwork, named above, of the shark suspended in the tank of formaldehyde that haunts me now, though the name itself has stayed with me for years. It is another work by Damien Hirst that comes to me when I think about life, death, and the afterlife. This work is For the Love of God *, a diamond encrusted 18th century skull which was presented in the core of Tate Modern in 2011, in the Turbine Hall, an impressive industrial structure with an open interior, 6 storeys tall. The architecture feels like that of a modern pyramid made of steel and concrete, an industrial giant, a marvel, a deity worshiping the gods of power and electricity. It’s size and cavernous shape offer the perfect placement for a black box gallery that contains the skull. The rapidly decreasing size here focuses one to confront this death mask as though looking through a zoom lens. One must confront, confront, confront. The skull seems to say, in Hirst’s sense of humour, that as much as you try to dress it up, you still can’t save yourself from the inevitability of death. No matter what power, money, richesses you possess, this is your fate. So here I am, doing the same dance, hoping that the next cigarette or tv show or song might delay the inevitable. Praying for a miracle just helps me avoid dealing with thinking about what happens next. There is a universe in which she gets up, and does a happy skeleton dance, and goes on with her life. Maybe this universe is all in my mind, it’s impossible to know.

Here we are now, in a universe where my mother has spent her last few days on morphine, a drug which I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t like. My mom wasn’t exactly a tea-totaller, but I’m sure she wouldn’t like narcotics. I realise that the tense I use when speaking, thinking about her is a mix of present and past. I’m ok with that. I know she likes psychedelics, as she made some great pot butter, which them became pot cheese, by no effort on her part, that was our go to on toast for a while last year. She was into trying MDMA, but as I didn’t follow up and she was unable to do so for herself, it seems that we have missed that boat as well. But we are in California, and there are good dispensaries everywhere, including just next door in Temescela at Root’d 510 where the medical cannabis menu is quite impressive. I will go back there today when they open to see how I might better serve my mother, and her right to die on her own terms.

A disclaimer here, I feel I must be honest and transparent. I will address this separately but for now time is limited and I must make choices and be brief. I am no longer sober, I am alcohol-free. I have been using cannabis again, sometimes smoking, vaping, and eating edibles. I have cracked under the psychic pressure of this situation to depend on it again to help me through. I am grappling with my addictive nature, addictive tendencies, and also trying to be gentle with myself. I am trying to enjoy the calming nature of the plant, the perspective and reassurance it gives to me in this situation. I am trying to balance using it to help me with the need to be present in this difficult moment, a task that alone feels like more than my body can handle. I am in the place, like my mother was last weekend before we brought her back in, via ambulance, where emotional and physical pain meet and become indistinguishable from the other. They work together to destroy all perspective, understanding, and ability to move forward. They are crippling. So for now I am again using cannabis to deal with all of this, I am trying to use it to better understand and be at peace with this, and to tap into my intuition as well. I am not sober, but I am alcohol free, and for now that is ok. I am doing the best that I can.