When you're 95 -- Not going home anymore #centenarian #funnyoldpeople

I paid Mom a visit yesterday--she's quiet, falls asleep a lot, doesn't smile much. She'll be 96 in just three months. I can see a difference just within the past year. She's slower. Life is a lot of noise, light, and color, and then, silence. I ask her to get right with God, I read scripture sometimes, show her sermons on death, talk to her about the Good News, and she stares as she has her entire life, "I'm Catholic." That's what people say when they don't know and don't want to know. They give their credentials to shut down the discussion. So I'm concerned but hopeful I am reaching her. She and I lead somewhat parallel lives as my life has been mostly quiet solitude since 2009. Friends leave, lovers deceive, a few years ago I had hope in a person but she didn't hope in me, didn't trust me, and I miss her terribly, but perhaps Mom needs me more. The two aren't mutually exclusive. I believe if I had a home life full of love, that would spill over to her. My puppies are the only thing that keep me from pacing the floors. She thought I wasn't prepared to be with her and commit--I just needed to know she was all in to commit. You don't move to a new town three hours away if you think that other person maybe, might, could possibly, was considering a life with you. Oh, and I do race! But my own body is slowly betraying me as well. Mom misses her house as it sits, empty. She said she wishes she could go home, but all of her friends have passed away since she left in 2020. I try to remind her she has a lot of friends right there where she is now, full staff to take care of her, she's in a better place than if she were living alone in her house. She'd need 24 hour care which none of her children can give her, and she never drove a car so--she wouldn't be out on the town doing things anyway. We offer to pay for her to go out a few times a month using transport. It's expensive but affordable. Without Christ, I'd be staring into a deep, dark, vacuum of a chasm, and worse, when one does not belong to Christ, the unquenchable fire for not accepting the blood of His sacrifice.