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                                The word non-fiction sounds so negative. "Non" tells what it is not, not what it is. Non-Fiction is real life. Non-fiction stories or pieces are true stories. Non-pretend. In the writing world technically as I understand it, anything that can't be proven becomes fiction as it is told subjectively.... from the writers point of view. Then somewhere along the line the term creative non-fiction came along, giving those of us who love real life some credibility.                                

                Mom has been missing for about 3 weeks. I've torn through the motor home, searched under piles of clean clothes and in the bathroom cabinets. Sometimes I simply forget where I put things.
                I last saw her lying on the thick short napped 1970's green moss carpet covers Nan and Michael's seven acres on Vancouver Island. Spots of drier gold interspersed areas not shaded by thick trees and undergrowth. Such was the knoll where sudden wind blew her dust back in my face as I spread her to another part of the northern hemisphere; where she clung to my fingers. Taking her with us to Canada in her basket seemed the only right thing to do. Her attendance at both my daughter's and my weddings only added to the uniqueness of those special occasions. We'd taken her back to Lake Michigan where we tossed her into water that gently lapped the slopping end of the pier, behind the old lighthouse. Then we trudged through deep sooty snow to spread her by Daddy's grave in the Jewish cemetery, which she wouldn't visit when she was alive. Said it didn't do any body any good and it only made her sad. She went on vacation for her own protection too. The wolf hybrid puppy's new affinity for chewing her wicker lid, caused serious concern.

                Diagnosed with lung cancer, Dink basically ignored the big 'C' and continued to tend her zinnias, tomatoes and prize beans flourishing on a rougher side of town. Watering in the cooler evening, an occasional unkempt unsteady gentleman approached her. When they refused to leave graciously, she simply turned her water hose on them.
                Four years after her diagnosis, Mom began to crumble. That summer she traded her garden hose for a long clear green tubing that allowed her to wander her apartment far from the oxygen source, a container the size of a small stock tank, and putz with her 25 blooming pink, purple and white African violets. Then the autumn of her life began.
                On her side napping, she would prop her cheek on the back of her palmed hands. Even with my silent entrance, she'd startled. Taught muscles cried for gentle massage. Sunken unmoving ribs covered the dying side. Probably because I was a nurse, in rare seriousness, she asked me what it was like to die. I told her I really had no idea. I had never been dead. But I told her that before Chris died, he'd told me he wasn't afraid. Then I told her that most people I'd been with at death, seemed peaceful. We agreed, she would let me know what it was like later.
                My sister Nan, visiting from Texas, called me at work. Mom developed sudden severe abdominal pain. The ambulance had taken her to the hospital. After driving 100 miles, I found her somnolent from pain meds and in the beginning of what we thought would be her quiet exit from this life. My four kids, ranging from 10 to 16 were by her side, turning her, suctioning her gurgling secretions and trying to 'cheer' her as they sat in her bed, next to her tiny sleeping frame, listening to M-TV. They knew Grandma didn't look kindly on weeping and wailing. The elderly roommate in the next bed peeked around the edge of the dividing curtain with curiosity and probably much aggravation, as the room was never free of our vigilance.
                When Nan's two kids and their father, John arrived, any semblance of privacy that existed would be totally destroyed, so we asked that Mom be moved to an empty room. As her sailing time neared, everyone wanted to hail her departure.

                Accustomed to working nights, and promising to call them with changes, I volunteered for the night watch. My nearly twelve year old son insisted he also stay the night with Grandma. Convinced by the mist in his eyes, the empty bed became his. My crude berth created from two chairs, one a slightly padded high back, provided only sharp pains, muscle aches and the danger of my falling to the floor. Uncomfortable and extremely tired, I realized that my tiny mother, sitting upright to enable her to breathe, took up only a third of the bed. Remaining empty white space tempted at me to rest more comfortably.
                Through some involved rambling logic I felt would justify my unorthodox plan, I deduced it would benefit mom if I slept next to her in the bed, rather than on the chair. Feeling sneaky, I carefully slid her 98-pound frame to one side, and crawled in along side her. My sleep came quickly.
                Suddenly I awoke to a smack in the face from the back of my dying mother's bony hand. In view of her fragile condition, I was rather severe when I asked "Mom, what did you do that for?"
                Her apparent lack of response told me it had been an uncontrolled action that can often occur with comatose patients. Pulling the covers closer to my neck, I dozed immediately. She hit me again. Whether intended to protest my intrusion or to let me know she was aware of my presence, this slap was not without purpose.
                I began to giggle. She was still in charge. In self-protection, I tucked her sheets tightly around her arms and slept. That is, I slept until questioning flashlight beams in my face stirred me to semi-consciousness. I mumbled some unintelligible explanation to the nurses, about why I was in my mother's hospital bed, and that the body in the other bed was in fact my son and not a patient they'd missed at report. Shaking their heads and whispering, the nurses left without argument.
                The next day, at least 2 of 6 kids were ever present, with the remainder in the lounge just down the hall. With turning, back rubs and a bed bath, our little mother seemed to emerge from her fog. I swabbed her dry cracked tongue. Her eyes opened to narrow slits. Leaning close to her ear, I said, "I'm going to try to give you a little Jell-O."
                "You know I hate yogurt," she said.
                Nan and I shot surprised looks at each other, both restraining sputtering amusement. Mom would eat any food in the world, except parsnips and yogurt. "This is jello Mom, not yogurt."
                "But I do hate yogurt." We all chuckled. Even near death, she was still a character, trying to die laughing.
                Nan and I needed time to recoup the previous 58-hour stint, and decided to go across the street for a beer. John was willing to stand by while we discussed the inevitable. "Mom, John is here and the kids are in the lounge. We'll be back in a little bit. Nan and I are going to take a break and get a cup of coffee." (Even though in her life, our mother had probably consumed many times her own weight in martinis, scotch and vodka, we just felt more comfortable saying we were having coffee intead of beer in the middle of the same day that she would probably die.)
                "Don't go." she whispered.
                "But, Mom, the kids are here."
                "Don't go." she repeated emphatically and clearly.
                This was not the usual '...go on with out me…I'll be fine alone...' mother we were used to. Gathered around her, our tears became laughter that turned back to tears. She pushed the oxygen mask from her face. I replaced it. She swiped it off again. My oldest, began to cry in panic. "Mom, she'll die if she doesn't have the oxygen."
                "Maria. She's ready. Let her go her way."

                Each child's eyes showed the start of their realization. This was the friend that fixed sick beds on the couch, brought tasty secret dinners when I'd left casserole, played games with them while "Jeopardy" or a "Cubs" game blared. When they were little, this is the one that bundled them in big fluffy towels after their baths, read them stories and became the kissing monster. Their strange ally was leaving soon.
                Minutes later, without agony, her respirations ceased. Miraculously wrinkles faded from her face. She looked like the mother I had before Daddy died. Some cried quietly, while others gazed with set jaws and twitching lips. Just before a student nurse walked in the room, Josh pulled the Cubs hat from Joe's head and gently placed it on his Grandma, the bill covering her eyes. Reaching over, Joe turned the cap sideways. As the student nurse entered the room, she was greeted by a deceased lady wearing a baseball cap and her laughing family. Unable to digest the scene, she scurried away for the charge nurse.

                Now, 9 years later my fears of loosing the very last of our mom escalated. Mentally I rehearsed that we may have left Mom in a gas station outside of Needles, or that she might have never made it back into the U.S. Friends with small children had borrowed our '79 Toyota Mini Mirage camper to go fishing. Had they used her wicker basket for their catch? My stomach churned. I pictured the heaps of camping remains piled on the floor the morning we arrived home after the 22 hour endurance drive we'd made from the Redwoods back to Arizona. Had the 70-pound puppy found her in the heap of gear while we slept? Was my mother strewn about the rocky weed infested yard, without ceremony? Would my sister and the kids ever forgive me?
                By morning I was anxious to end my dread of the unknown; set to search all the puppy's favorite hiding places; the spots he carried shoes or cans from the recycle box. But something sent me back down the driveway to search the motor home one more time. And there she was, the lady who drank and smoked, ashes falling where they might, as she cooked to ease her depression. Mom in her basket, bagged in a clean trash bag, were wedged tightly and safely by the drainpipe under the tiny sink. A smiling memory of her sitting on top of the refrigerator at my daughter's wedding reception flashed. What had I been thinking? I should have known she'd be in the kitchen.