Milk after meat

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. 
At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms
....
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
--William Shakespeare


I wanted this to be a super smart post contrasting two observations; the first being that after a long life of eating "meat", my Mom now survives on a primarily liquid diet of Ensure, jello, water, and milk, and never very much of any; the second being that many times, after a long life of living on spiritual "meat", we all still need the milk at times, that sometimes we need rest from being bogged down in the "thick of thin things" of culture and society and practice vs doctrine..

I wanted it to be, but I have to leave it at that for now and trust my readers to make their own contemplations on the matter.  Time is too short now to do much that I don't feel like doing, and I don't feel like a long post today.  The confusion has set in.  She's hardly eating.  She spends the majority of her time in bed.  She surfaces sometimes, but other times, she doesn't understand what's going on, why there's so many cards and flowers and visitors.  She wonders who's sick and what people aren't telling her.


We celebrated Mother's Day yesterday (Earth Day = Love Your Mother = We do, but she might not be here for the official Mother's Day) and she got to talk to all of her kids.  My sister was in town this weekend, and my brother and his husband came to visit yesterday, and our other brother called in and will be here next weekend.


Today, we had to tell her that she (and her brother, who was visiting when she last asked) are sick with cancer and that it's taking over her body.  She still didn't understand, and wanted to know what we were leaving out.  I had to tell her she was going to go see her mother and father soon.  She looked at me with a little surprise, but she understood.  She knew that meant the time wouldn't be long.  Then she observed, "This is totally strange."


It is.  It must be, to realize that you're quickly coming to the end of your journey, and you're having to say goodbye to everyone you love.

suckitude...