The nurses at Fletcher Allen Hospital are the best.  For the last few days they have provided my mom with excellent care, called her honey and dear, and served as the first line of defense; as did the nursing assistants  who patiently changed her bedding at least four times today and lifted and held her so gently.  God bless the nurse who let me sob on her shoulder when I couldn’t bear to hold it in any longer.

Thank you to the emergency room staff who looked me in the eye when I was the guiltiest and said, “You’ve taken such good care of her.”

Thank you to my friend Courtney who has walked Gracie every afternoon and to Liz, Carl, and Jeffrey who have offered and given so much.  Thank you to my colleagues who are so much more and who offered to make meals and put them in my freezer.  Thank you to my neighbors who surround my mother and me with care.

Thank you to every single person who has sent up a prayer, a wish for health, a meditation, a thought of love.

My mom, who you all know if only from my stories, fell last week and bumped her head.  Just a little bump.  Two days later she became disoriented and couldn’t quite balance herself.  The CT scan revealed a small amount of blood in her brain.  Doctors say that it will dissipate but it will leave behind damaged brain cells.  At the age of 92 my mother will have to learn to walk again.

She will do it.  There is no doubt in my mind.  She has done things that took far more courage than this.  She stayed firm by my brother’s side while he battled liver failure and cancer and never wavered, not even for a moment.  She buried him, her husband, her sister and so many more.  She saved pennies and quarters and dollars for two years to buy a house where it would be safe for me to play.

When she was 86 she sold her house in Fort Worth and moved half-way across the country to make a new home with me in Vermont.   That summer with absolutely no regard for her safety she got in a kayak with me and paddled in circles on Lake Champlain. Her first winter she rolled down the side of a snow covered hill and couldn’t stop laughing. When the lake froze over she held my hand and walked out on the ice even though the cracking was scary and creepy.

My mom is my compass and my beacon.  She’s stubborn, gritty, salty, and spicy hot like Texas chili.  There are foods that only she can make – chicken & dumplings, cornbread dressing, and peach cobbler.  No one else should even try because she’s the best.

So what I want to say is that I love her absolutely and that she is absolutely the best.