This Woman's...

My mom wakes up at 6:00 a.m. Even on weekends.

She does her stretches and her aerobics; the same set of exercises she has been doing since 1987. Religious exercises that shape her mentality more than her body. She then tidies up the house, packs a lunch for herself and puts out some ground beef to thaw. Jake is now at the door wagging his tail demonstrating the canine pee dance. While she waits for Jake to do his doody, she rummages through her purse for the first of what will be numerous times looking for nothing in particular. A quick breakfast of 1/4 cup of Grape Nuts with skim milk then she hits the shower and spends 20-30 minutes "putting her face on." This prep, with her age, now includes plucking a few random hairs on her chin and upper lip. After the hair spray and earrings are placed it's back to the purse to take inventory of what she may or may not need in there for the day.

Mom sits in the car for a few seconds. I imagine she is giving herself a pep talk. I imagine she is prepping herself for her day. She goes through her mental check list. With a deep starter breath she puts the key in the ignition of her Dodge Caravan and when the mini-van revs the car speakers vibrate enough for her to realize that her boyfriend was the last person to drive. She quickly brings the volume down to barely a whisper of a song. She pulls out a folded piece of scrap paper where she scrawled the address of a vacant apartment. She checks the time and puts the car in drive. She doesn't hear the lyrics unfolding silently through the radio. She only hears a background filler of the faint sound of a female's fragile, air-filled vocals...

"Pray God you can cope.
I stand outside
This woman's work.
This woman's world."

Across town, at the only hospital, my grandmother paces the halls outside Ray's room. In between visitors and passers-by offering their condolences, she talks to herself. It's hardly audible because she doesn't want people to think she is crazy. But, she is. She doesn't feel it happening, even though everyone else can see it. She furiously chants about Ray, curses God, reprimands her children. She scolds the weather, the timing of it all. She aches in her stomach from the sobbing jabs and the starvation grief brings out.

A life is leaving her. It's only a matter of time. A life she shared. Her new life, if you can call it that, will be so foreign after Ray. She's forced to leave the house after his death because it isn't her's and because my mom thinks it wiser for her to downscale her life. The thought of a tiny apartment makes my grandmother's breath short and her hand clutches at an imaginary strand of pearls.

There is a nurse about 10 feet away sitting at the Nurse Station. She is eating one of the hospital's pudding cups, catching up on her charts. The tiny, dusty, beat-up AM/FM radio is softly adding a calming white noise to the otherwise anxious and chilly hospital hallway. She notices my grandmother. She nods an understanding smile her direction. My grandmother stares at her blankly and takes a seat.

Grandma clasps her hands in prayer. She hasn't decided to pray for his life or to pray for his soul to depart from pain. She bows her head, silently sobs and as she begins to greet her lord with unknown words, the voice on the nurse's radio heartbreakingly sings...

"I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.
I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking..."

My mother hurriedly signs the lease for the apartment she just viewed in an attempt to beat the trepidation to the dotted line. Grandma will like it. She will spruce it up and make it her new home. Mom has to do these things for grandma. All these things that will need to happen while grandma grieves.

As the dear life of our beloved Ray passes, my grandmother moves into a new life and my mother takes on a new role in life. She begins the last cycle of her mother's life by parenting her parent.

The song remembers when...

"Oh, darling, make it go,
just make it go away now."