In the past few months, my mother has taken ill. My mother is 82 years old; she has had lymphoma for more than 25years now. The doctors really did not expect her to live this long, and she has had four different rounds of chemotherapy to fight the ongoing battle with lymphoma. However, I can’t say that she has taken good care of her health in other ways. She suffers from heart failure now at her age and leads a very sedentary life. Let’s be honest, she never really exercised, she enjoys eating, and although she has many self-help books and diet books strewn about her house, she does not seem to follow them very well, but she is happy to tell me what I should be eating during the course of my life.

This last time she was in the emergency room due to swelling in her legs that started weeping water. Her legs are often swollen, so she doesn’t seem bothered by that, but her body retained so much water that her legs were now dripping. This was due to her heart failure and the fact that over the last few months, her diet consisted of pastrami and other assorted deli sandwiches along with bacon cheeseburgers from the local fast food drive-thru. A heart failure nightmare waiting to happen. Her friends in the neighborhood, an over-55 retirement community, were gracious enough to bring her groceries since she can no longer drive and check in on her now and then. Still, my mom also convinced them that they should buy lunch and bring it over to eat together, and she would buy it. I am not sure what she craved more about; the social contact these days is pandemic isolation or junk food. All that tasty goodness kept building up in her body, and eventually…well, here we are in the hospital for a few days with very swollen legs and a heart full of water. At her age, we pay for every code violation dearly.

I moved to Arizona to be closer to my mother. I arrive after not seeing my mother for a little more than two years. Then, the pandemic arrived; it stopped unnecessary travel and essentially isolated my mother even further since she is also immune-deficient due to her previous bone marrow transplant. I arrive in a house which reflects that isolation. My mother is not a hoarder, but she has limited movement and a lot of stuff. Books, picture frames, coffee cups, knick-knacks, souvenirs of a life full of friends, family, memories. Plastic flowers cover many vases, plastic fruit empty bowls, dust the rest.