WATCHING MOMMA DIE

The Long Wave Goodbye...
9.21.2014

(Note: This is a diary from an emotionally-tragic time in my life. As such, I feel a great deal of creative license and I reveal a lot about myself. My hope is that nobody feels offended, disparaged or taken aback by my frank talk. To reveal myself in this way, is an exercise of love to my community.)

On my first visits, I just sat there and held her hand.
Sometimes, crying.I think she liked me not talking
and just being there.

I write this in Homage, to my mother, The Honorable Judge Deborah Shelton Griffin, whose shoes I could never fill. 

Spoiler alert: she died after a long illness.

I remember the day I began feeling that something was really wrong with my mother. I have a terrible memory, but I believe it was in September of 2009. 

We were in France, as part of a fantastic Mediterranean cruise she had set up for her immediate family to enjoy; her, myself and my little brother, Jonathan. I forget which stop it was on the cruise. Perhaps Marseilles. Mom and I decided to escape my brother on an excursion to see the city.