A DEBT I CAN NEVER REPAY

President Obama has mentioned more than once his admiration and love of nurses, and the profound impact that nurses have had on his life.  During the past month (especially), I have been reminded of his words, many times over.  The kindness and generosity of the nursing staff at my mother's nursing home during the last difficult week of her life was truly remarkable.

I can never thank them enough.  For helping me and my wife through those last seven lousy days.  For truly caring.  And for the love they expressed ( in so many, many ways) for my mother over the years.

I honestly don't know how they do it, day in and year out. Nurses are special, wonderful human beings.

From the bottom of my aging, grieving heart... thank you for being there.

You guys are the best.

FOR MY MOTHER

Thanks, mum.  For everything.   For being my mother.  I couldn't have picked a better one.

I'm just so glad you're at peace now.

This is the song I had in my head today.  I hope you like it, mum.

Cheers, lovely lady.

I feel as though I'm an actor in someone's crappy, maudlin movie about death and family dynamics. 

Who writes this... shit?

All the world's a stage, eh?

It's getting close to the after-party.  But tonight, I'm already gill-flapping fucking drunk.

Oscar, please.

BROKEN CHAIN

My mother has been in the hospital for the past week.  She is nearly ninety-two. And knowing that she's lived a long time and that death comes to us all (and yadda yadda yadda) doesn't lessen my anxiety. I've been through the vigil twice before... with my brother and my father. After a botched kidney transplant, my brother drowned in his own bodily fluids at Toronto General Hospital during the course of a lovely fall weekend. When he died, his head was the size of a fucking soccer ball.  My father drifted into a diabetic coma (which wasn't that much different from the Alzheimer's Disease that had actually taken his life five years earlier). He died peacefully, and without pain.

So.  She's hanging on. 

I've provided the (amazing, wonderful) staff with a DNR order. I visit.  Feed her.  And wait for the call.

I hate this shit.

And the fact that I somehow felt the need to write this down for public consumption.

Och. Hootman. Tomorrow is Robbie Burns Day. And We Have a Haggis.

Book your table now.

SKIN

I need to grow a different skin.  In-
different skin. 
And not be bothered;
Like a fucking snake's
Not bothered.
Unless it's bothered.

ZUGZWANG

When I was still a semi-active chess player (thirty years ago) my rating managed to hover around 1600.  That means I was a fairly decent club player (who usually concentrated for about twenty moves then offered draws when I might well have either coasted to or toughed out a win -- because I didn't really the enjoy the two-hour hard slog.  What I wanted were two or three quick games, win or lose, then off to the pub.)  These days, my attention span has shrunk even further.  When I play on the computer, it's usually a five-minute blitz game -- ten at the most --  then back to the novel.  My rating now is a rather dismal 1430 and I have difficulty beating any player on Chessmaster with a rating within 40 points of mine (plus or minus).  I have forgotten most of the opening lines I memorized years ago (except for the Sicilian, which I play a lot, and a couple of its variants).  It's weird, but I get a bigger kick from teaching the game to kids than I ever really got from playing it. (Those who can't...etc, I guess.)  My last real game was online about three years ago.  I managed a draw against a player rated @1900+.  That's when I packed it in.  The game was excruciating. Sixty-eight moves.  When it was over, it felt as though I were missing some organs.

Don't get me wrong; I still love to play.  But only for fun.  And only if I'm allowed to kibitz.  I did all my serious playing back in high school and university. (And Kee-rist, I must have been fucking insufferable back then.)

I don't know why it seemed important to tell you all this, but it helped to kill a half hour while the beer was chilling.

And the beer is cold enough now.

Cheers.