I was 30 when my maternal grandmother died. She had been the source of unconditional love for me during a fairly stormy teenage period. As I look back, I’m not sure I could have navigated my early adulthood without her either. She took her own life after fracturing her hip and surviving multiple short stays in several nursing homes. My mother was devastated by guilt and sorrow for well over three years. I found solace in her evident courage, her determination always to have lived her life her own way, and her tattered, hand written recipe books.

My dad died when I was 50 after a long and complicated bout with heart disease. When his wet behind the ears young surgeon suggested another heart surgery the week before he died, I couldn’t imagine how his considerably diminished body would withstand it. He didn’t have surgery and died shortly thereafter. I’d been with him the week before (present for the surgeon’s visit), and knew he didn’t have the strength to go on much longer. My dad too had courage. He recovered from a long love affair with alcohol. He acquiesced to many medical procedures in his last 15 years of life that were painful, invasive, and prolonged, with grace and without losing his dignity.

My mom is 89 and I am 65. She has entered the hospital for the second time in two months. Last time the doctors diagnosed congestive heart failure after so many other docs had been mystified by a chronic and seemingly incurable cough that overtakes her in the evening and when she is generally tired. Perhaps I have deluded myself all these years that my mom is immortal. She has certainly seemed so. Now it is clear that she is human and not superhuman, that her engine is wearing down.

She has been a central figure in my life, for my whole life. With the exception of a period of six months when I didn’t speak to her as a result of her consistent need to report to my brothers and their wives what she is thinking about me (rather than sharing that with me), I have been in contact with my mother at least twice a month. I’ve shared wonderful vacations with her, books we both love, and the Chautauqua Institution–the magical place in northwestern New York state that hosts world-class speakers, musicians, dancers, and singers–all summer every summer. Several years ago my mom asked me to write her obituary. It is in my file cabinet, having been enthusiastically approved by her after I wrote it. I woke this morning, knowing that I need to update it as her life is nearing its end.