I am riding on the bus watching the sky lighten incrementally. I’ve been up since dawn getting ready to meet Mom today. And now, when I look again through the window, it is already light, pale sunshine reflecting off the city’s tall buildings. I am fearful. I have been living too comfortably with the status quo, with the idea that Mom is in an okay place, a holding pattern where she functions within societal norms and can care for herself physically. I am afraid to lift my he