Maybe a Day or Two

When Jan & I retired ten years ago we returned to California to be near Lois, Jan’s mom.

We bought a condo in Long Beach while she lived across the LA metro in Tujunga. Tujunga is an LA neighborhood nestled at the edge of the national forest at the very edge of the city.

I very much enjoyed the fact that the name Tujunga is not a Spanish word, but Tongva and it means the “Old Lady’s place.”

The old Lady continued living on some two decades past her husband’s death. A tough old bird in her early nineties friends from church in their seventies and eighties would ask her for rides. But eventually the decline began to settle in. About five years ago we started visiting several times a week to take up slack here and there in her life. Three years ago we sold our condo and moved in with her.

In time her extreme old age started catching up with her. The leading issues were congestive heart failure and COPD (an annoyance as she never smoked nor lived in a smoking environment. Well, other than LA during the terrible smog days.

About seven months ago she entered home hospice. That actually stabilized her condition and the first two of the three month reviews each time they almost kicked her back to palliative care. But starting a week before that second review she began to show some signs of decline.

The decline was fast moving. And maybe two weeks ago we all went over the edge.

The day of her 99th birthday she was unable to go down the hill to the big party her church threw for her. And it’s continued into dying hard and fast since.

We’re now on the death watch. She’s in a hospital bed in the family room, an addition to her house she and her late husband did themselves. Jan and I are sleeping in the room with her. Me on the couch and Jan on an air mattress. Jan’s sister Karen joined us for this, as well. But as there’s literally no more room in the room, is sleeping in mom’s bedroom.

The pastor from her little fundamentalist church has been by, and after visiting with her, well, really sitting with her as mom has long passed from terrestrial conversations; assured us that the church would take care of the memorial service. The minister from Jan’s and my Unitarian church has also been in touch several times checking in and offering any help we want.

That wet snoring which is called the death rattle began two days ago.

Starting last night a rhythm has emerged where she inhales, exhales, and then there’s a gap. Maybe 30 or 40 seconds. It’s hard to tell for sure, but it seems to slowly be extending.

Dr Google is saying maybe a day or two. A lot of people have been saying maybe a day or two. The hospice nurse. A hospice nurse who visited on our nurse’s day off. A couple of friends who are or were hospice nurses.

A day or two.

Or, maybe a couple of hours.

Or, maybe with this exhallation.

We’re all past exhausted.

This business of dying is hard.

I think of the phrase a “maybe a day or two.” Kind of a magical placeholder, kind of like that extended out breath, pointing to the great mystery of life and death. The moment as it is and the great web.

How passing everything is. And yet how precious and even luminous it is when we allow the mystery of it all to present as it is. Like Krishna revealed to Arjuna. Like God present to Job.

And our job is not to turn away.

Hard not to think of those words inscribed on the han, the wooden board that’s struck to call people into the Zen meditation hall.

Life and death are of supreme importance.

Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.

Awaken. Awaken.

Do not squander your lfie.

In part due our exhaustion we’re able to let it all be. And be present to it.

As she was slipping away from us to her own most important business, in a lucid moment Lois, mom said, “This is like getting ready to give birth.”

Hard work this letting go.

Nothing wasted,

Birth and death.

Nothing lost,

Life and death…

(Lois Seymour died at 7:25am today, the 24th of August, 2026, about two hours after I posted this meditation. Her daughters and I were with her. She was 99 years old.)

The image is of Lois with her daughters, Karen (on the left as you look at the picture) & Jan (on the right) & her daughter-in-law Diane on mom’s 99th birthday.