When my mother was dying, she would listen to Keillor's Lake Woebegon tapes all night long. She loved his voice. In those long hours when there was no sleep for her anymore, but the discipline of years kept her trying to stay on a schedule, she would play them over and over. Those last weeks, I'd be lying in bed across the hall, listening for her as I half-dozed, worried that she would need me, and I'd hear the click and then his voice, soothing and calm, going on for hours.
I packed up all those tapes after, took them back to Dallas, thinking I would listen to them, maybe hoping that they would connect me to her a little. But I never did play them. I think I was afraid that she wouldn't be there. |
