LIFE and DEATH

I am in Ann Arbor (the town that was named for me) which is not only my hometown but my spiritual home in my spiritual state (note the cozy mystery series - The Bait & Stitch Mysteries - set in the Upper Peninsula. The prequel to accidental detective Hatti Lehtinen's story is set for release on May 1, 2018. Anyway, business aside, I am here because my mother, who is only three years away from her personal centennial, suffered a collapsed lung during a biopsy. She spent a week in the local hospital where two of my children were born and where my father and grandfather died. It is a state-of-the-art facility and they took great care of her. Afterwards, the hospital doc sent her to a care and rehab facility where I (for some reason known only to myself) believed they would keep her for three weeks which would include the time devoted to a short spurt of radiation for lung cancer. Imagine my surprise when I arrived there yesterday to tell her I'd made her a hair appointment and she trumped that with an announcement of her own: "I have news, too. I get to go home on Monday!" "No!" I barked my response in front of one of her dear friends, my husband and my dog. I followed up this graceless moment with fifteen minutes of how it would not be possible for her to come home because my husband, brother, dog and I COULD NOT LIVE IN THE SAME HOUSE with her for three weeks whether she was sick or not. I probably shouldn't be telling this story. I know I sound heartless. But the fact is, my mom smokes. She's smoked for 70 years which is why she has lung cancer and is facing radiation. She has said she will stop smoking but my brother, who has a really good mom-b.s.-detector, doesn't believe her. He's probably right. At the age of 97 she feels she's entitled to live her life as she wishes. But, really, how can we squeeze all these folks into my childhood home? How can I become the non-smoking police? How can I insist that she use a cane/walker/raised toilet seat/grab bar when all she wants to do is play solitaire on the kitchen counter with her long, elegant black-and-gold cigarette holder between her teeth? I can't. What's more, my brother, who is the chef, chauffeur, manager of the house (we had to buy and install a new washing machine), and really the only reason I am still semi-sane, will leave. I will have to cook, chauffeur, assist, nurse, do laundry and monitor the smoking. But I haven't gotten to the funny part. In an effort to talk with a social worker at rehab center I got re-routed to the social work office at the hospital. Someone must have pushed a wrong digit on the number and I got a voice that said, suspiciously, "hello? Who is this?" I explained who I was (no one important) and she said, "huh. What do you want?" We went back and forth for awhile, neither of us really making sense to the other. Finally I laid all the cards on the table. "Look I'm trying to find a social worker or a nurse or a doctor or someone who will strong arm the rehab center to keep my mom there longer. I know it sounds heartless, but you don't know our family. We're like oil and water. We get along fine as long as there are 500 miles between us. We even celebrate Christmas on the phone. You just don't understand. I can't spend three weeks of watching Law and Order re-runs at the pitch of a Nazi siren. I can't spend every waking minute as the cigarette police!" "I could probably help you with that," the voice said. By then I had forgotten who was even talking to. "Do you know who you called," she asked. "The morgue." I told her I wanted to find a social worker who would insist that the rehab center (and Medicare) keep my mother longer. Again, the unidentified voice said, 'huh."