Decline

Last week my sisters and I moved our 91-year-old mother into a nursing home, the last place on earth she and we wanted her to be.

Our mother would welcome death, and says so frequently, but mightily resists decline.  Is it possible to embrace decline…loss?

What do poets know?

Writing rhapsodic about ebb and flow?

When your daily experience is that

You are weaker today than yesterday,

And there is no cure, and truthfully,

You want no cure,

When getting dressed is exhausting,

And bed feels like home, and

Though perhaps confused at times

You know who and where you are,

Who you once were,

Is it possible to say yes,

I succumb?

I embrace ebb?

Ebbing with little or no flow?

Or must I resist, pushing myself

To fend for myself,

Refusing to burden others?

Mother, show me the way.