These are the things we have

My mom is in the hospital again, with elevated calcium. Hypercalcemia is a condition she struggles with because of her cancer. When her calcium becomes extremely elevated, her mental status changes, and she becomes lethargic and confused. She often doesn’t know where she is, or sometimes even who she is. She has trouble orienting herself to the date and time. And she sleeps a lot.

She’s been in the hospital about a week this time, and her calcium has gradually gone down. She had a UTI (because her shitty assisted living facility leaves her in soiled Depends), and she has recovered from that with some antibiotics. Her bloodwork has returned, mostly, to her baseline. But her cognitive functioning has not. She cannot feed herself. She doesn’t know where she is. She won’t talk. She stares into space and cannot have a conversation.

It’s not clear what is causing the alteration in her mental status.

The doctors, nurses, PT, OT, social workers, etc. have all already brought up discharge, with tentative plans for Monday. And I have talked to as many people as I possibly can to tell them that this is not where her cognition was before she was admitted. But they see an 80 year old woman, with stage 4 terminal cancer, and a variety of other medical conditions, and as long as her bloodwork is fine, she must be fine, too.

She is not fine. She is merely sometimes awake.

Because of my relentless phone calling, an MRI has been ordered. But no other tests. No other imaging or bloodwork to determine the cause of her dramatic mental change. And I have no idea how to make our healthcare system work the way it is supposed to work. No one will give me a prognosis. No one will tell me if this is her new baseline. And I am left having to make decisions and plans based on poor information and even poorer speculation about her future.

For Christmas I bought her a heated coat. She likes to go to the theater, and she’s often cold. And she uses a walker, and walks slowly, and in the winter, moving from a car to a theater entrance takes time. And I wanted to give her something to keep her warm, a coat with a battery operated heater, so that she could enjoy doing the things she loves. And as I wrapped it yesterday, I realized that she wouldn’t be able to unwrap it. That she physically can’t perform the small hand movements that we take for granted. That she doesn’t have the strength to tear a decorative piece of paper.

Much less the strength to put on a coat and go to the theater.

But I wrapped it anyway. And a tinted lip gloss that I thought she’d like. And a new caddy for walker that could hold more things. And I taped everything up and stuck bows on the paper and wrote gift tags.

What else can I do?

One day, I will look back, and this will be the Christmas my mom made another incredible recovery. Or I will look back, and this will be the Christmas my mom began hospice. Or I will look back, and this will be the Christmas my mom almost saw. Maybe I will help her unwrap her presents. Maybe her presents will wait. Maybe they’ll never be opened. But they’re wrapped. Lipstick, a heated coat, a walker caddy, all things of potential, of walking out into the world to do the things you love.

And still, when it comes down to it, these are all just things.

It’s hard to write about the holidays, and illness, and sadness, and avoid platitudes and sentimentality and tirades against materialism. But everywhere I go are Christmas lights, and my tree is lit up and shining, and my giant 12 foot skeleton is hanging tinsel on my gate. No matter where you go, or what you believe, the winter holiday season is stuffed with hope and expectation and anticipation. It hangs from streetlights and it’s displayed in windows. Everything is bright. Everything is shiny.

And it’s beautiful.

I can’t stop moving too much because the full weight of sadness that I feel is as inescapable as all the Christmas lights. But it’s there, a sadness so present and palpable that I almost feel like it should have its own stocking and Christmas present. We watch TV together and knit together and run together. We wait together. We look at the lights together.

And it’s still beautiful. All the chaos and electricity and cold air and tinsel and Santas and mangers and decorated trees and wreaths and cookies and wrapping paper and bows and candles and lights and lights and lights. And it reminds me of my mom making Chex Mix and keeping it in a giant Tupperware container on the screened-in porch. And decorating the house with the mistletoe we shot down from the trees at my grandparents house. And my father re-gluing the wings on the angel yet again so that she may reclaim her space at the top of the tree. And I am so grateful for every moment that I stopped, and noticed, and saw the glitter, and the felt the cold, and stole handfuls of Chex Mix from the container on the porch.

Because it’s all cumulative. All the lights and the years add up, so that now I’m surrounded with them. Even though the lights of my childhood are gone. Even though they’re going. Every beautiful little moment. Every not so beautiful moment. Every twinkling light echoes all the past twinkling lights I’ve ever stopped to notice, the rainbow colors like candy-colored wishes in the darkness.

Stopping to notice that beauty, those glimmering moments, the soft darkness, and holding them close—that’s all we ever really have anyway.

And sometimes, if I sit very, very still, it’s almost enough.