so this is hospice

Ma is dying.  She says she is ready, that she isn't afraid, that she is pretty sure that what will happen is that she will to go to sleep and then wake up to the voice of Jesus calling her name. This gives her comfort.  Yesterday she grabbed my hands, asked me to open my heart and let Jesus in. I smiled and listened, but I won't lie to a dying woman.  She tells me she loves me even though I don't believe in god.
This is awkward.  Dying is awkward, and messy, and beautiful. And it doesn't matter how good your intentions are, toes are going to get stepped on (literally and figuratively), feelings are going to get hurt, tempers are going to snap, and commodes are going to tip.  Ma urps every now and again, even with her nausea meds.  I think she is surprised at how much the nausea is getting to her.
All the people who love her gather in clumps around her.  They trip over each other in bedroom and kitchen.  I stand helplessly with two of Ma's friends in the kitchen, waiting to throw away the lid of a pudding cup.  If this were my family, I'd give a playful nudge on their tushes and say, "'scuse your butt!" But they aren't family.  They are strangers to me and the only thing we have in common is Ma.
They are in there now, saying goodbye.  The grief is frightening, is explosive.  It is as messy as the dying is, as messy as love.  Ma is comforting them, absolving them for leaving in the middle of this.  And they are desperate to stay.  I have no part of this.  I am the daughter in law, and I have only been in the picture 7 years, not the 30 years of these friends, definitely not the decades of the other daughter in law.
I am here because I love this woman and I love her son.  I am here to offer emotional support and my medical training.  And in the middle of the night, as Ma is waiting to go to the bathroom and I am struggling with the legs of the commode, trying to get the stupid notch locked evenly on each one, I wonder what the hell I am doing and how I am failing so spectacularly.  But we do the best we can.
My husband's father showed up today with the woman he left Ma for all those years ago.  Left her with three boys to raise all by herself.  I think they were seeking forgiveness, even though they wouldn't admit it. Bless Ma.  I think she had forgiven them long ago, and told them so.  They left, finally, had someplace they suddenly had to be. And she has been sleeping ever since.
All these people calling, crying, praying at her.  And she receives them, listens to them, loves them.  Prays with them.  And then sleeps, because they exhaust her.

  Ma is dying.  As we all are.