The view from here is beautiful.  I can see another wing of the building, the hospital and I can see fields and farmland and a highway winding through the hills.

Sitting next to a hospital bed hour after hour, there’s lots of time to think.

Some of the things I’m thinking about, I would prefer not to

think about.  Wish I didn’t need to.  That’s the problem though,

with reality.  Eventually it’s just there and every which way you turn it’s right in front of your eyes.

I’ve been breathing in the fall air every morning and every evening and not many minutes in between.  I would love to be out there walking and looking at the prairie beauty and maybe taking a seat next to the beautiful river that’s running, at the bottom of the hill and on the other side of the path near my sister’s house.

Sure

I would love that.

I would prefer to do something other than sit next to this bed,

if only

it wasn’t my mother lying here.

Now though, I’m watching and listening.  This dear mother isn’t saying much but every once in a while she has something to share.

I’m all about remembering.  Like to do it.

Like tonight when I went to the blanket warmer just a few steps from Nano’s room and chose one of the warm flannel sheets from inside and brought it back to cover her tiny body, to keep it wrapped and bundled and hoping she would find comfort in the soft embrace.  When I spread it over her I couldn’t help but remember cold winter nights a lot of years ago when she would tuck me into my own bed and wrap me in the very same sort of flannel sheet.  She would straighten and tuck and fold and it smelled so good and it was so cozy I felt myself float to that dreamy place in a short minute.  Love wrapped me up and now Love is wrapping her.  It is with a broken and remembering heart that I take my turn to show my devotion by wrapping and straightening and touching and kissing.

There’s a lot of remembering going on as we gather around.  We aren’t talking about the memories right now, just yet.  We are too busy drinking in the present.   We sit and look and then take a second look to be sure we aren’t in the wrong place at the wrong time.  This

surely

cannot be her.  Yet it is!

Before our young ones come with their own young ones, to visit, we give a warning.  It’s important for them to see her but they need to know she isn’t who they remember her to be.  It’s different now.

We are proud of them

and more are on their way.  They too want to sit and look.  They too want to drink her in, hold on tight.  One after the other comes and sits on the chair, right there, by her side and one by one they reach for a tissue and not one of them is ashamed of the tears running down their face.  Quietly, gently they tell her how loved she is.  What a wonderful witness she has been, to God’s faithfulness and they reach for her hand or touch her head or kiss her forehead and this terrible, sad, precious time will be remembered as

family time.

“Don’t come for Nano, but come for you”,  we say.  “You won’t regret coming but you might regret not coming.”

We are granting most of her requests.  She asks and if possible we say, yes.  With the doctor’s okay.

I’m quite proud of my accomplishment these days, encouraging and smiling and watching

and keeping the weeping inside.  Now though…

I was sitting over here near the window just a while ago and the sun was going down.

She wondered, from where she rests, if I had moved her dinner tray.  I guess she must have been dozing when the girl came to remove it.  I explained that it was gone and asked if she needed something.  Well, she just thought she would have another bite of pie.  I, of course did not mention that there had been no pie on her tray tonight. I walked over and sat close and we talked about pie for a minute.  Oh how my mom loves a delicious piece of fresh pie.

At the House house, we had dessert after our meal.  It wasn’t always pie or cake or something fancy.  It might have been a dish of canned fruit that Nano had Put Up.  A jar chosen from the myriad of jars of assorted fruit down in the cold room.  Maybe that fruit was served with a cookie, or a brownie.   We did not get up from the table until we had enjoyed something sweet.

Some rituals are just too important to mess with.

So

to have a chat about pie is not far fetched for we two.

It was when I asked what kind of pie she would like, if she could have any pie she wanted, that my heart skipped a beat or two.  You see, her answer took me back a few months, to a day when I had a conversation with a different Nano about Her favourite pie.  That other Nano was the sister of This Nano.

My mom, the Nano lying in this bed in this room in this hospital in this city

answered that if she could have any pie, she thought it would be lovely to eat

nice warm Raspberry pie.

I thought about that other raspberry pie requested by my dear auntie Marj.  I told you that pie story in Passing it on and Raspberry Pie and

I expect that tomorrow, after I make yet another Raspberry pie and bring it here, so that my dear mama  can enjoy one and maybe two bites, I will have yet another raspberry pie story to tell.  I have had a hard time hiding the tears on my cheeks since the pie chat a couple of hours ago.  I told my sister when she arrived tonight with her husband, that we needed

raspberries and she sent me a picture just a few minutes ago, of raspberries.

I could hardly believe they were on sale.  Nice fresh plump raspberries just waiting to be purchased by us for our dear one.  I’m going back now, to the bed in the house next to the river and first thing tomorrow morning, while the early birds are singing I’m going to make pie.  It’s going to be raspberry pie and we will bring it hot from the oven, here to room 6811 and we are going to sit and chat

and eat as much as our stomachs will hold.