Nosh: 7 hours ago...

7 hours ago...

I run the events over and over in my mind. I arrive at JFK airport, all goes smoothly, I pick up my bag and walk out of customs into the arrivals hall. My brother waves to me from behind the barrier; he's on his cell phone and he walks over to meet me. I hug him a few times, he asks how my flight was -- it's about 3:30 a.m in the morning for me as I'm still on european time, so I babble a bit about the journey as we walk. He takes my suitcase, then he takes my laptop bag from me even though I'm perfectly fine to carry it.

He puts my bags down and stops to retie his shoe - he tells me he sprained his arch .... He gets up and says something like, "ummm, okay, listen..." and I ask him how my mother is. I think he's trying to prepare me for how she's going to look or tell me that her condition has worsened. "What happened?" I ask. He says, "She took a turn for the worse." and I stop to look at him. "Yea, but she's okay right?"

And then I watched him say, as everything came crashing down around me, "actually...she didn't make it." I see my other siblings sitting on a bench nearby, all of them...and they run towards me and surround me.

I didn't make it home in time. If I had only come one day earlier I could have at least held her hand and let her know I was there. Sometimes you think you have all the time in the world, that people will be okay, but then they aren't. My brother Gerry told me that she knew I was coming but I'm not sure if he's only saying it to ease my pain. I never had a chance to speak to her again. Last week we talked about her possibly leaving the hospital and being home by Thanksgiving. It all seems so incredible; I had no idea she might die.

This was 7 hours ago.

I can't believe she's gone.