I’m leaving tomorrow morning to go and see my mother, and it’s beginning to feel as though this will be the last time.

She’s much weaker now. She’s had a few falls, and she is refusing to eat, the nurses tell me–and even though they bring her to the telephone when I call, I almost feel that I shouldn’t be taxing her strength by wanting to make her talk.

She’s that weak now.

But she does know that I’m coming. I had hoped when I booked this trip that we could take a ride out and see the beach once again. She always loved the ocean. But now it doesn’t seem as though that will be possible.

Although, as the hospice social worker told me, you never know. Sometimes patients can rally–and perhaps that will happen in this case, too.

Mostly, though, I expect that I’ll just sit next to her bed while she sleeps…

It’s so hard to believe it was just a little over four weeks ago that she got the news that her colonoscopy showed some cancer.

But just to show me that life does go on–tonight I’m scheduled to do a reading for a book that I was a contributor to. “Blindsided by a Diaper,” published by Three Rivers Press and edited by Dana Hilmer, is released this week. It’s about the amazing thing that happens to your marriage once you have a baby. I’ve written an essay called “Dating the Hubs,” about the first time my husband and I tried to go on a date. 

The reading is at 7 p.m. at Curtain Call in Stamford, if you’re anywhere near the place, and would like to come. Four authors are going to be reading: Beth Levine, Bill Squier, Pamela Kruger, and me. And best of all perhaps, the cast of “Baby” is going to sing songs from their show in between our readings.