Company

I will be returning home tonight as my cousin is coming to spend the weekend with my mother.  My mother is doing fine, or at least as well as she was before her hospital stay, so I don't think I will have to return--for now.  Still. . . the guilt.  

"The therapist told me I was strong.  Meh.  He had me walk across the room, measured it.  He said he'd come back next week." 

She shrugs.  

"I told him it was o.k.  I could use the company."

That's what my mother wants most now.  It made me think.  Company.  It seems an old, almost disused term now.  My mother is going to have company for the weekend.  

I rarely have "company."  The tenant comes down from time to time.  I guess that is what it is.  Just a drink and a chat.  Tennessee stops by occasionally.  Otherwise, though, I live as an isolato.  

I remember as a kid, people would just stop by the house without calling or prior knowledge.  People were always stopping by.  I remember being irritated by it sometimes when we were about to go somewhere, but my father would have them in for a chat.  Sometimes we never made it to where we had intended to go.  If we were going to do something like go to the drive-in, it was a large bit of agony.  

But that is the old world, it seems.  Now "company" is mainly a text message.  We all protect our privacy with more vigilance, I guess.  If we want to see people, we meet them out.  

Mom, however, no longer goes out.  There is no "out."  She welcomes anyone who comes to see her.  She doesn't want privacy any longer.  She would like company 24/7.  

So, as I say. . . the guilt.  

* * * 

And now for the happy update.  There was a bottle of wine in the kitchen last night.  I'd had a couple glasses with dinner, so it must have been at least half full.  I looked for it before I went to bed last night and it was gone.  

My mother has just got up and walked into the living room where I am sitting.

"How'd you sleep," I asked her.  

"I slept ok for a couple of hours.  How did you sleep?"

"I took a couple Tylenol and went to bed.  I woke up soon after.  My nose was running, so I took one of your allergy pills.  I still didn't sleep.  My nose was running all night long.  Heck. . . I sound like I might have caught something.  Hey. . . there was a bottle of wine in the kitchen last night.  Where did it go?"

"I don't know.  What did it look like?"

"A bottle of wine."

"I don't know.  It might have gone into the garbage."

"Why would you throw away a half bottle of wine?"

"I don't know.  I'm not with it."

Now for the kicker.

"I'm ready to go."

"Go where?"

"Wherever I go. . . up or down.  I don't have any regrets about going."

And thus the death talk began.  What does one say?  I'm no good with platitudes.  I can't say, "Oh, don't be silly, you have a lot to live for.  Everybody is happy to come see you blah blah blah."

Instead.  

"Nice talk.  Here' some for you.  I don't have any reason to live.  I've been broken all to pieces.  I live alone.  I think about killing myself all the time.  It wouldn't matter.  My house is falling down, my car is a piece of shit, and I'm running out of money.  I've stockpiled enough narcotics to make it easy.  What do you think?  I've had an incredible life.  I think I'll just get on the couch, put on some music, drink some scotch and take the pills. It will be a pleasant way to go."

She just looks at me.  

"Yea.  Nice talk."

When people tell me what a good son I am, this is the kind of thing that makes me shake my head and say, "I don't know."  My tolerance for much of what life throws at us is very, very low.  Existential questions like living and dying. . . I've just read too much.  

* * *

I was almost happy for a minute yesterday.  It was a fat burning day at the gym.  No lifting, just moving.  I did the incline treadmill and even ran a couple short distances.  Then I cranked it out for miles on the bike.  I was sweating like a drunken pig when I got on the stair stepper.  And when I was done, I chatted with some gym friends for awhile with just a bit of an aerobic buzz going through me.  Endorphins.

When I went to my house, I put on my leather gloves and began doing some much needed work in the yard that has been neglected the past couple of months.  There are woody vines that grow up in the holly bushes that front my house.  They are impossible to get rid of as they spread roots deep in the soil in all directions.  All I can do is cut them.  They grow into the bushes wrapping their vines around and around the branches until they reach the top. Then they grow thick and cover the shrubs until they die.  The evolutionary sense of this is beyond me.  To combat them, I can only get down at ground level and cut them off so that they have to make their slow journey back up the branches of the shrubs once again.  It is dirty, sweaty work.  At one point, I grabbed a bunch of thick, woody vines together and began to pull.  Nope.  So I gave it the old muscle.  I was in close quarters and when I yanked, I stepped back onto something that tripped me and I began to fall.  It was slow motion and I was thinking if I were not so broken up and in better shape, I might be able to right myself, but I couldn't and I landed on a bunch of unused pots.  I threw my left hand back and it went through a big, clay pot bottom which broke in two.  It felt as if I may have broken a finger, too, but the thick leather gloves fit tight and it was just a strain, no break.  I looked at the clay pot bottom with sadness.  They cost plenty of money now.  

But other than feeling my age, I was fine and went back to work.  

After about an hour, I had weeded all the shrubs in the front of the house.  Just in time.  They had not yet begun to waste away.

Next, I did the easy thing.  I watered all the palm and ligustrum trees in the yard.  It just hasn't rained enough to sustain them.  They looked pretty happy.  

And with that, I went in to shower.  I threw in a load of laundry and decided to get a Chick-fil-A sandwich.  I brought it home and ate while texting with Q who had Juneteenth off to celebrate his people.  

Yes, for a bit. . . I felt almost happy.  

* * * 

As I was writing that, my mother called for me.  She had opened the safe.  She wanted to show me where her will and banking things were.  Fun.  

In a bit, I will get ready to take her to the bank where she has a CD to deal with.  Then I will bring her back, strip the bedsheets to wash and dry.  Then I will go to the gym, go home, and come back to wait for my cousin to arrive.  Probably I will need to have dinner with them.  

I take my mother to her primary doctor on Monday, and on Tuesday to the eye doctor.  I will come to sit with her each late afternoon as always.  There will be many trips back and forth to her house, but it won't be enough.  She wants what everybody desires--company.  

Someone to hold hands with all the way to our destinations.

* * *

Here's what Q was listening to yesterday.  He sent it along.  Sounds a bit like Sunburn in Cypress, I think.  I like it.