My siblings and I are facing my mom's future the way you would as a driver facing an oncoming car: with dread. 

She is 85 and still vibrant, ever the extrovert, opinionated, steely, determined. She does not like to be sick; no one does really, but mom treats illness as an affront, something that gets in her way, and damn it, it's just plain irritating.

One day this week, her blood pressure hit 225 (the top number), she was wobbly and dizzy, and she ended up in the emergency room,

Hello oncoming car: Not going to bother pumping my brake.

"I don't want to be sick," she told my sister at the hospital. "I'm  not ready to go." 

She also asked if my sister had ever seen Donald Trump's son: Biden. And she offered a tutorial on "Dancing With The Stars": It takes three 10s to have a perfect score, Val never gets knocked off early and the losers appear on "Good Morning America" the next day.

I've never watched "Dancing With The Stars," but I'd binge on the damn thing if it meant my mother would stay healthy for many more seasons.

Facing your mother's mortality, I suppose, also means facing your own. No one wants to look at that model car. You think crazy things: Who will be as happy to hear my voice on the phone? Who will make the grandkids laugh, even when she scolds them? Who will tell me proudly how she's balanced her checking account to the penny? Who will ask for a piece of chocolate after every meal despite being diabetic? 

Once in a while, mom admits to being glad she's on the way out: the way things are today and all that. She will invoke her years as a dance-happy high school student, then a wife, then a mother: all she ever wanted to do. 

So yeah, I'm going to miss that at some point. Don't like the color of that car.

                                                     

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