Mortality

For those who don't know me,  who I am today is profoundly shaped by my being attacked in 2013 by someone wielding a box cutter who managed to sever the anterior branch of my carotid. I spent the better part of 3 months recuperating from that - physically, yes, but also emotionally & spiritually.

I find myself compelled to examine mortality again.  But it's very different this time; instead of facing my own mortality stemming from an unexpected swift and potentially brutal attack, I'm now dealing with my parents and their diminishing health resulting from a slow and inexorable passage of time. My mother slipped and fell and she went from the hospital into assisted living care. From there she will be transported to an assisted living facility in another state in the city where my sister resides. My parents moved into their current home in 1970. My mother laments that she will probably never see her home again. My father will turn 95 this coming Monday. He's no longer capable of living alone by himself. He's agreed to move along with my mother to where my sister resides. But his Chinatown cronies are telling him that I should move back to Ohio to take care of him. I have to find a way to tell him that my moving back to Ohio is not going to happen. It's complicated. Anyone who just hears my voice without seeing my face is incapable of discerning my ethnic heritage. But every day I walk with one foot each in one of two often mutually exclusive cultures, and it's most complicated when it comes to relationships and obligations. The short version is that asian cultures in general are community based and relationships and obligations that accompany those relationships factor into the choices and behavior while western cultures tend to celebrate individuality; the privilege of making choices for one's self is viewed more as a right. The needs of the many vs. the needs of the few - or the one...

My mother's' choices illustrate that. When she fell, she actually postponed going to the hospital four (4!!!!) days, lying in bed in excruciating pain - because she knew that if she went to the hospital, my father would be home alone. He requires assistance every morning pricking his thumb for his blood sugar test. My mother finally went to the hospital when my sister drove eight hours from where she resides and took my mother to the hospital. After her X-ray/diagnosis - she cracked her tail bone - the case manager forbid my mother from going home. She was discharged into a assisted living facility about four blocks from home. My dad has been making food and taking some to her every day.

I guess the best way to put it for now is that instead of pondering the randomness of death, I now ponder its inexorability and how to respond to that.