From the bottom

I spent the night in a hospital last night. Not me, I'm fine. My mother.

Under normal conditions she is challenging. Under the duress of age and pain and opiates she is fragile, confused, demanding.

Her piety shows itself in her ongoing desire to simply tolerate pain as a part of the human condition. This and her very specific request that her medications are not laced with eggs, gelatin,  animal byproducts. She will literally chose death over changing her diet.

Which leads me to the real point of suffering. Her spiritual path, provides her days a dogmatic structure of good works and repentance, speaks to the truth that this is a plane of suffering. That all humans are here to overcome the suffering that they created in past lives and in this life before setting out on The Path. Accordingly, this world is also a toilet in comparison to ascended realms.

I am somewhat bitter about all of this crap because I see the perpetual suffering that religion creates. The belief that pain is a punishment, that it's somehow deserved. It is also the most important thing in her life. More important than either my brother or I are or have been. And that's okay.

I watch how beautiful she is in all of this and am grateful that I am here. I speak her language which is huge because it helps me filter and buffer her interactions. 

I am not a terrible daughter. We may just have different values.