c'est la vie

 62 days.  Just 62 days ago a life of 83 years long, gently slipped away.  Not with clanging cymbals, not with fanfare, not needing us to make the difficult and final decisions pending, just a gentle slipping away, connected to many machines, doing many different things.  Dear Mom, When the hospital called and asked me to come as quickly as possible, I knew.  When the nurse said they couldn't discuss it over the phone and that I should drive carefully, I knew.  Loadshedding robbed us of getting there a few hours earlier, since in loadshedding your house becomes that bastion of zero signal. They couldn't reach me. But they assured me that it would have still been the same news. There would not have been time to speak to you.  Goodbye. I said it. The evening before. You know that I had arrived 8 days earlier, just 8 days, knowing in my heart and mind that this would be the last visit that you would be part of. I had asked the hospital if I could visit af...