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Daniel's IM

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Friday 20 May 2005

12:10

We land at LAX. That's the main building and the control tower as we're coming in for a landing.

12:43

Just about to pull away from the gate, after a delay from the removal of a medical emergency, we're again delayed, this time by the need to "obtain a bit more documentation" from a couple of the passengers.

The travel arrangements keep getting better and better. PowerPort, plus an aisle seat, and nobody sitting in the middle seat. Such luxury!

Having a bit of a sniffle from my recent cold, I took a 12-hour antihistimine to dry me up and prevent any clogging of the eustation tubes. It's working wonderfully. Takeoff, flight, and landing; no problems.

I called Emil from the last plane; I'd forgotten to let him know I'm coming. He said Mom was "collapsed on the couch" after a rough morning. Doesn't sound great. The ex-EMT in me wants to do something, which is of course the antithesis of end-of-life palliative care. Sorry Mom, at least I'll be able to share company. (Did I mention that Felicia - with Adam and Ziggy (staying at his parents' nearby house) - are coming about six hours after me?)

13:30

Finally airborne. And I'm rudely reminded how much down the toilet domestic travel has fallen: one has to buy lunch from an expensive, dissapointing selection of sandwiches. Sigh. No wonder I always try to book a couple of hours on each stop-over. Meh.

15:19

So I head over to the head. I'm second in a line of about three. Then four. Then six. We look at each other; whatever can the two people in the bathrooms be doing for so long? Finally one door opens. It's a flight attendant. Hmmm. Eyebrows up all around. The elderly woman in front of me heads into that bathroom. Then the guy behind me starts asking whether the other bathroom is working. I tell him it says occupied, so I presume there's actually someone in there. Then that door opens. Guess what? Yep, another flight attendant. They really should give them some better place to take their breaks.

Max Raabe & Das Palast Orchester, to which I've been listening, is too upbeat for my mood. I switch over to Manu Chao. His multilingual layers of music, speech, and sound effects seems a bit more somber.

18:30 Pacific Time / 21:30 Eastern Time

The plane lands, on time.

I have three phone messages. Most important is from Dziadziu: Mom is doing very badly and I should rush over because they're not sure she's going to survive much longer. What!? That's much faster a decline than we'd been expecting, even though when I spoke to Mom on Wednesday afternoon I could tell she was emotionally distancing and shutting down.

I call Emil, who sadly tells me Mom expired while I was airborne. I'm sad not to have spoken with her in person, but happy that I both wrote and told her how much I loved her and how much I appreciated the good ways she'd mothered.

Karin Sattler-Kutsera, born 14 January 1938, died aged 67, at 20:40 on Friday 20 May 2005.

The next message says that Felicia, Adam, and Ziggy got onto an earlier flight and are only about three hours behind me. Emil says he'd like me to come over and he'll pick them up when they arrive. That I do.

23:00

I'm here now, in the house in which I spent much of my childhood. Mom looks peaceful. Emil said she went quickly and quietly. I know how vexed she was being besieged by cancer, after a lifetime of remarkably strong health.

Emil heads to Newark Liberty Airport.

It becomes tomorrow as I sit at Mom's bedside, listening to Beethoven symphonies.

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