Hey Mom . . . I love you. Don't go just yet.

At 6 p today I'll be on the phone with my 3 brothers and my sister to talk about Mom. We will have results and recommendations from her doctors about treatment that will keep her alive. It's up to us to decide whether she stays alive or indeed has a life. She's trusting us to decide what's best for her. How many times in her life did she make that same decision for each one of the five of us? Now it's our turn. Meanwhile, I'm starting a journal to give her on her 88th birthday a few weeks from now on Nov. 8--trying to capture as many memories as I can write down that are running through my head like a fast-moving slide show. I hope, want, pray she will read and enjoy it. She loved one I gave our dad on his 80th birthday 5 years ago and not two months before he died. I'm sorry I've waited so long, this long, too long? Don't go yet, Mom. Two weeks ago she was her vivacious sharp self. That's how I see her; that's what I want to see again. But how does she feel? What does she want?