The smell of hospitals in winter
“A Long December,” Counting Crows
And the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
My mother had a debilitating stroke on June 10, 2017, and just two weeks later, on my sister’s birthday, my father died sitting in a wheelchair next to her bed.
I visited my mother all but a day or two from June 10 until she died in hospice December 7, 2017, less than a week before her birthday on December 13.
Mom told so many intense and detailed stories that I often find myself confused about real details and ones that she fabricated—such as her obsession with Indians, Cher, and living briefly in Lumberton, NC.
Here is a thread of poems and posts about my mother:
dr. p.l. (paul) thomas 