Bosch, Heironymous. c. 1510 

Triptych: Paradise, Judgment, and Hell.

(Me) “Lunch?”  (She) “Beans and chilies.”

(Me) “Chilies?  You mean toast, right?”

(She) “You are just playing dense!”

Pouring petrol onto oil.

My mother turns 90 years old in one month.  Don’t tell her you know this.  She has strictly forbidden any of us to celebrate such an awful thing.

Mom is someone who grew up in the Great Depression.  Like my father, she has an unassailable belief that one can only count on oneself.  It is up to each person to conduct his/her own affairs.  One should never be beholden to anyone else.  I refer to that set of values and attitudes as John Wayne stoicism. 

Mom recently broke her leg very badly.  We weren’t sure she would survive the required surgery.  She did.  We weren’t sure she would ever be able to walk again.  She needs a walker all the time now, but she gets around.  We weren’t sure she would be able to go back to her assisted living apartment and be on her own again.  Although she has had a month of round-the-clock care givers, she can manage on her own and is doing so now.

Still like every other human being I know, mom has her inconsistencies.  She is emotionally quite vulnerable, and she really doesn’t like to be the center of attention.  That’s why you shouldn’t let on that you know she will be 90 or that the whole family will celebrate her birthday whether she likes it or not.

Here is a vignette of my mother.  My sister, my mother and I were talking over whether mom was ready to let go of the care givers and be on her own with the normal amount of assistance furnished by the assisted living facility.  She could only think of one problem, getting the storm door to her apartment open to go out for a cigarette when she wants to.  My sister suggested that she could go out the back door, out the side door to the sidewalk, come around to her porch, and smoke there.  “Oh, no!” said mom in horror.  “People would see that I was smoking!”  Mentally I was doubled over in laughter, but I think I pulled off the attempted straight face.  As if anyone at the assisted care facility who would be interested doesn’t already know that she smokes.  In point of fact, all the facility staff who do smoke already congregate on mom’s porch to smoke on their break.  Still, mom lives in the belief that one lady who eats at the same table as mom does not know mom is a secret smoker.

The other morning mom and Babs were sitting out on the porch for mom’s first cigarette.  It was before the staff came by to give her her pain, tranquilizer, and anti-depression medications.  Mom was wishing that she had not survived the broken leg.  Babs asked her if she was frightened of dying.  “Oh, yes.  I’m going to Hell.” She replied.

When Babs relayed that bit of conversation to me, I was instantly angry.  Hit someone in the face angry.  Someone in the pulpit at some time had sold my mother on the idea that Hell was the inevitable destination for those who deviated in any way from the path of righteousness.  In her mind my mother has stepped off that designated path.  Once?  How many times?  As an orphaned child?  As a young wife?  As a mother?  Did she get caught smoking by her mother-in-law?

Mom isn’t going to tell me why she will go to Hell.  She knows beyond doubt that sooner than later she will die.  She will end up in Hell.  Well intentioned people like me might try to talk her out of that conviction, but in those moments of pain in the early morning sitting out on the porch with her first cigarette, mom feels trapped.  Living is no longer pleasant nor easy.  Death leads to an eternity of suffering.

I am so angry at that guy in the pulpit.