"My body is at its dirtiest right now," my mother said.

My mother, who had been living alone at her family home, was hospitalized.

I will omit the detailed circumstances here, but my mother's body, which had been barely functioning while managing severe heart failure and dropped head syndrome, finally reached its limit, and she is now in the hospital.

Heart failure is here👇

Dropped head syndrome is here👇

As a family, we very much want her to rest, and while she herself feels relieved to be in an environment where she is being watched over, she is now forced to lie down constantly, whereas before she had to force her body to stay upright, so

symptoms that had not appeared before, such as dizziness and hallucinations, have started to emerge and,

because her life, which she had lived as she pleased, has now become one where treatment is the priority,she is unable to keep her body and hair clean or manage her own waste as she would like, and she seems to be feeling frustrated.

The words that came from my mother were the ones in the title.

It is heartbreaking to hear such words from my mother, who has lived her life to the fullest and is now approaching its end.

Especially since I also understand the circumstances on the hospital ward side.

However, I believe that my mother's words, her current state, and her frustrating hospital life are all

the greatest "lesson" that my mother is teaching me.

🟣🟣🟣

There is a saying that "the final education received from parents is 'death'," but

my mother's body and brain cells are now definitely working toward death rather than life.

Along with that, I have a feeling that the person I have known as "Mother" until now is gradually falling apart.

She herself is bewildered and disgusted by this, and strongly feels that she "doesn't want to be seen." However, eventually, as her consciousness fades a bit more and her cognitive and memory abilities decline, this will likely turn into resignation.

According to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's "Stages of Grief," it is said that all "loss experiences," such as death, go through the following stages.

1. Denial (and isolation)...Unable to accept death as fate, doubting the facts (such as test results), and isolating oneself

2. Anger...Feeling anger, asking "Why me?" and lashing out at those around them

3. Bargaining...Trying to escape the fear of death by clinging to something (religion, complementary/alternative medicine, donations, etc.)

4. Depression...Realizing that death is inevitable, despairing over the sense of loss, and becoming unable to do anything

5. Acceptance...Accepting death as an unavoidable fate and finding peace of mind

If we follow this rule, my mother's state is likely one of moving back and forth between stages 2 and 4, but

personally, I think this rule only applies to people who have no cognitive issues or who can grasp their current situation with some degree of clarity.

In my own subjective sense, regardless of whether someone has a handicap or not,

a person is healthiest when they are best able to maintain their "true self" and

as they go through aging, some kind of illness, or accidents, I feel that people gradually "fall apart."

For example, when someone who could see loses their sight, the functions of the eyeball, the optic nerve connected to it, and cognitive processing in the brain become a state where they are "detached from that person and will never return."

When a lower back that didn't hurt starts to hurt, or when you can no longer remember things you used to be able to remember, the parts like your "lower back" that you had been moving as you pleased as "your own thing," or the sense of "remembering" things,

are distanced from you by pain, or the sense of control is lost, like a battery running out.

The more these pieces fall apart, the more people gradually feel "death" is close at hand, and I wonder if they don't move toward that moment with certainty while going back and forth between the stages Ross described.

These are the things I thought about, not just regarding my mother, but also from the appearances of all the elderly people I have met until now.

I think it's okay to have an approach like that too, don't you?💓