It’s early March, and the signs are in the air that another winter is coming to an end. There’s a few minutes of daylight when I get home from work now. The cold winds still blow, but they aren’t as frigid as they were four weeks ago. The weather forecasts still threaten us with snow, but mostly mixed with rain and slush.

I haven’t seen any bulb plants (daffodils, crocuses) poking up thru the muddy, snowy ground yet; but I have seen robins up in the trees. Usually you see them on the ground, looking for worms; but that protein source will not be available for another week or two. In the interim, they probably know how to find other kinds of birdfood, like the sparrows and starlings survive on. They obviously were thinking of the recent mild winters we’ve had here in the Northeast. Surprise, this one was like the olden days. But the tougher the winter, the sweeter it is once it’s over. Or almost over, which is where we are right now.

This was my first winter since my mother died back in October. It’s been a time of reassessment for me, given that I had put a fair amount of energy into helping manage her decline over the past decade. This had become, unbenownst to me at the time, a big mission in my life. I didn’t realize just how heavily I had invested my own identity and sense of self-worth into the situation with my mother. I’m in a “redirection” phase right now.

That’s looking forward. But this winter has also been a time of looking back, of remembering what my brother (who was my mother’s main caregiver, the front-line guy) and I went through in accompanying my mother through the final chapters of her life. For many people, the overall theme and memory would be one of loss. My mother herself had put much time and effort into her own mother’s final years. After grandma had finally passed, mom was quite melancholy. She focued on the loss of someone very close to her.

I’m taking losing my own mother a bit differently. I look at her life and my role in it as something that could have gotten really messed up. We in fact had some bad years. But in the end, it turned out pretty well. Mom lived a decade longer than anyone had the right to expect, given her family history and her own health factors. She seemed at peace with the gradual loss of her health and vitality, but she wouldn’t go without a fight. During the early days of last winter (2008-2009), actually before winter officially began on Dec. 21, she was rushed to the hospital by the paramedic squad one afternoon after losing her breath. Her heart also stopped, and she had to be paddle-shocked during the trip.

Over the next 9 weeks, she spent most of her time in the hospital, much of it in a coma state. Despite a relapse incident, she eventually regained consciousness, despite the many gloomy prognostications from doctors and hospital staff. It was obvious that she was fighting and fighting hard to stay alive. She wanted to go home, even though the social workers said that she would have to be sent to a long-term critical care facility (if she survived). Her unspoken determination and optimism were contagious; as her vital signs haltingly improved, a social worker pulled the doctor aside one day to make arrangements for institutionalization. The doctor brushed the proactive worker off with one sentence: “SHE’S GOING HOME”. And she did, even if it took two tries.

Thankfully, she never went back. With the doctor’s reluctant assistance, we managed to set up a support system for her medical conditions at home, and it served her well. When her final crisis came seven months later, the doctor told us that a hospital intensive care unit really couldn’t do much more for her; it was down to the question of where we would rather have her die (yes, he did say that.) We were quite sure that she would have chosen “HOME”.

Looking back on all that, I kind-of feel . . . well, sad now that it’s over. It all seemed like an awful burden when it was happening. I almost felt that my own life and my future were being threatened because of all the demands she placed on me, in terms of time and money and administrative attention and emotional concentration. But while it was happening, I couldn’t foresee that maybe something very good was at stake. My mother died at home with dignity and comfort, with my brother next to her. She didn’t die alone at night in some institution, or in a speeding EMS van, as we had feared. She had long since lost the ability to talk with us; but over her final months, she still managed to say it all. I.e., that despite all the crazy family conflicts and fights in the past, despite being reduced to an invalid, she still liked being alive and being with us.

When you get close to being old (pretty much how I would describe my present age), you realize that only so many things in your life will turn out well. A lot of friendships and jobs and romantic involvements and other projects in life go sour or fail at some point. I think it would be accurate to say that most things in most people’s lives turn out to be disappointments. For many people, this includes their family and parental relationships. Some people get rich, some get famous, some have high-achievement careers. That wasn’t in my stars. But somehow, I managed to more-or-less do right by my mother. It was an involving mission, sometimes a tough and even painful mission. But it turned out to be a good mission. And now it’s over.

Will there be any other “good missions” yet in whatever time I might have left? Right now I’m in a twilight zone, in that regard. I go to work, do my job, pay my taxes, vote, put my crazy thoughts on this blog, keep in touch with some friends, read my books, have my [half-baked] “big thoughts” about where it’s all going . . . and for now, I guess, that’s enough. But nostalgia is a strong tempter, and sometimes I can’t help but drift back into the recent past. Perhaps the approaching sunlight, and warm temperatures, and blooming flowers, and soft, evening breezes will soon pull me back into the present. We shall see.