How quickly things can turn when a person is 91 years old. This weekend has been an emotional roller coaster. I went to the nursing home Saturday morning to take my mother her laundered clothes. I found her in the dining room slumped over in her wheelchair shaking and her eyes closed. She looked so pitiful my heart just broke. I touched her arm and sat down beside her trying to coax her into eating. It was no use. She just trembled and kept telling me she couldn't do it. Every bite I did manage to get into her mouth she would swallow and it would immediately come back up. I realized this was just torture for her and finally asked the nurse if I could stop. I also asked them if they would put her back to bed and not force her to stay up in her wheelchair. They informed me it is my right as a family member to make such a request. My mother is there for rehab. but I think it is a battle we are losing. She is losing the will to fight back. She is slipping away from us. Her condition was so heartbreaking that I just fell apart when I finally left. I cried so hard I just didn't have any tears left. When I left her she was back in bed and beginning to doze on and off. At dinner time I returned to find her dressed again and back in her chair. Things had not improved and again I tried to feed her and again everything came back up. This time I just told them I didn't want her back up again. About that time my daughter Jamie arrived and her reaction was the same as mine. She just broke down and wept. I hated seeing her that way but her reaction confirmed my own and somehow that was reassuring. My daughter's purchased a lift chair for my mother after the nurse recommended putting something in her room. It seems that she had an episode the night before where she felt she couldn't breathe. The staff borrowed a chair from another room and she sat in it the remainder of the night. So the girls purchased a chair and brought it to her room. When we left she was in bed and the chair installed. Later in the evening my brother went back to check on her and she wasn't any better. She began telling them she was having chest pains so it was our call as to whether she went to the ER. I went back to the nursing home and my oldest brother met us there. Mom didn't appear to be in any pain or distress but she was lethargic and refusing to eat. She just keeps looking at me in a way that makes me feel so helpless. I can't make this any better. My heart tells me she is giving up and I can't blame her. She is in a pitiful condition. If she doesn't have the will to fight back we cannot give it to her. I just want God to wrap his arms around her and comfort her. I want him to help her let go of this life and go to the next with him. I can't be selfish enough to ask her to stay for me. I love her too much to ask that of her.