TELL ME ABOUT IT

Dear Carolyn: The holidays were great except ... my mother looks like she is dying. She had a significant fall the week before. Somehow managed not to break anything. She and my dad managed to get to our family gathering over six hours’ drive away.

She was in pain the whole time. They drove home in stages doing some visits on the way.

They live in a continuum-of-care place and have friends and activities and help with medical issues available at the pull of a string. But I just can’t get over how awful she looked. Exhausted. Pale or rather ashen.

I’m having a hard time integrating this. I’ve known this level of decline was coming for ages. But I maybe thought that moving to the new place with more assistance would be a magic cure that got us a few more years? Now, I’m not so sure. Help? — Can’t Get Over It

I’m sorry your mom is sick, and that it brings painful feelings sooner than you had hoped.

You sign off by saying you “can’t get over it,” though — when you can, and almost certainly will. Remember, we are built for this. We are meant to die and we are meant to witness death. Since we are meant to love, too, that means almost everyone will eventually feel the devastation you got your first real glimpse of this season.

Renounce “magic.” The more we invest ourselves in an outcome, the more we set ourselves up to lose.

Take steps because they’re necessary and/or helpful, but don’t expect anything of them beyond their face value.

Meaning: Choose housing with extra assistance because you know your mom needs extra assistance, not because you think it’ll buy Mom X additional years.

So you help more, listen more, visit her more, be more present for her in general.