My Mother was supposed to die, last Saturday: Sunday at the latest. When we talked to her last Thursday, her voice was garbled because she was on morphine to help her breathe. She'd been in bed for several days, too weak to get up and all she was talking about was going home to see her Mother. This weekend, we watied for a phone call: The phone call. Yesterday, my Sister Helen went over to see Mom. Mom was sitting up in her chair, dressed to the nines. Or at least 8's. She'd just had her hair done and was about to head off to play bingo. She told Helen to tell Ruth that she was heading out to see her boyfriend, Phil. She gets a big kick out of Ruth kidding her about Phil, and asking her is she is behaving. At one point in the conversation, Mom said to the woman who was in cleaning her carpet, "You might as well push me over the cliff," and Helen said, "It wouldn't do any good, you'd just climb back up again."

I heard that Vegas is refusing to give odds on when Mom is checking out for good. The first prediction was that she'd go a year ago at this time. She may well make it to 100, after all. Or, as Frankie said last night at Messenger's practice, "Your Mother's been alive for 100 years already." When I reminded him that her 100th birthday won't be until next June, he said "She was alive for nine months, before she was born, so She's been alive for 100 years." We both got a food laugh out of that one.

Jerry