A Time to Remember

When I tell people that my mother lives with me and is in hospice care, they draw back in horror and say, "I'm sorry." I don't even try to explain that I'm happy with this situation, that we are spending amazing time together, as in we just watched all of Season One of Madmen on DVD with no commercial interruption while having cocktails. As in... we took an impromptu drive the other day and munched hamburgers and fries in front of a lake because it decided to be spring in late January. As in...she told me, over coffee, of the story of her date with Dad at age fifteen. He got tickets to the opera, Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera House from his older sister, Georgette. Spiffed up and sweating from nerves (it was cool out), he picked Mom up and they took the trolly from Tremont Avenue in the Bronx to Westchester Square subway station...got off the subway and Dad was lost, it was late so he hailed a cab. He jumped in after Mom and yelled at the cabbie, "Metropolitan Opera House". The cabbie looked at Dad squarely and said, "Sorry Sonny, can't take you there...it's right across the street." Mom said Dad was mortified. So began the many years of joy and sorrow she spent with Pop. Stories like these over coffee are golden nuggets. Mom looks fifteen again when she tells them. Who says hospice has to be so horrible?