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Anybody want a watch? I don't need mine anymore. I'm living on primordial hospital time.

Just as it was in the first three days of the world, before the creation of the sun resulted in a 24 hour cycle, hospital time stretches on into infinity. I sit interminably at my mother's bedside waiting for her to flutter her eyelashes so I can jump out of the chair and give her a big smile. "Hi, mom. The doctor just passed by. He said you're doing great." Great means she survived open heart surgery.

She doesn't feel great. Not yet. She's able to lift her finger and point to the clock, indicating that it's time to remove the hated oxygen mask which makes her feel claustrophobic. She's able to tell me that she wants a sip of "ice water," but the effort of whispering those two words puts her to sleep almost before I can get the straw between her lips.

We went through this ordeal with my father several years ago. He was in worse shape going in, so he didn't make it. My mother well remembers those months, and is loathe to relive them in first-person, but there was no choice. Her aortic valve was too damaged to endure, so she "chose life," as Deuteronomy tells us to do. But I could see in her eyes tonight that she's second-guessing her decision. Her gay blue eyes have turned grey in both the literal and figurative senses. But that's just now, while she's only five days into her new aortic valve and her new circumflex obtuse marginal something-or-other vessel. ("As long as we're in there," the surgeon said, "we should replace her flex capacitor." Wait a minute -- isn't that the fictional time travel gadget from the "Back to the Future" movie?)

What she dreaded most was becoming delusional. My father suffered from hospital psychosis. Anyone with hospitalized elderly relatives knows that as evening approaches, "Sundown Syndrome" sets in. The patient becomes disoriented and even hallucinatory. That's when they try to pull out their tubes and charge down the hall calling for a taxi to take them home. It's torturous for the family to witness the diminishing dignity of someone who was radiantly intelligent before disease made inroads into the brain.

The day after my mother emerged from surgery, she was entirely lucid. She asked sensible questions. She made insightful observations. But midday she took a nosedive. Her breathing became labored. Her pulse became erratic. Then she pulled me close and said very calmly, "I'm going to die tonight. I want you to know that I've had a very good life. I don't regret a minute." It's a good thing we were in the cardiac unit because I could feel my heart splintering. I thought to myself, maybe she has some special intuition that the dying have that tells them the end is imminent. Two hours later, she said, "They're trying to kill me. They want the insurance." That's when I knew it was the anesthesia talking, not my mother. I was relieved, but sad that what she most dreaded had happened.

Several hours and several chapters of Psalms later, she rallied. She regained her lucidity but she became very physically weak. That's where things stand as of now. She needs to regain her strength. To do that, she needs to be able to breathe and move and eat. Sounds so simple and yet....

There are two things I despise in the realm of entertainment: rollercoasters and mysteries. I stagger off rollercoasters dazed and nauseated (which is why I don't get on them in the first place). I skip to the end of mystery novels because I can't tolerate the suspense (which is why I don't read them in the first place). And here I am, riding the rollercoaster of my mother's recovery, please God. And stuck in the middle of the mystery of how soon (actually, just "how") this tribulation will end.

All things considered, God has been very good to us. First of all, even though He sent a storm today, He cleared the highway for me and I got to the hospital with no glitches. Second, He made somebody pull out of a parking spot right in front of the hospital door just as I arrived. Third, He gave my mom a good life. And, finally, He allowed her to realize that she's had a good life and He let her tell me as much. How much more blessed can we be?

If He sees fit, He'll grant her some additional healthy, productive years. Maybe I should use that time at Great Adventure practicing the Tilt-a-Whirl, or hunkering down with a few volumes of Sherlock Holmes. I'm not sure you can prepare for losing a parent, but every mystery eventually reveals the ending, and even roller coaster rides slow down to a stop after a good long run.

Barbara Kessel is the director of administration at the N.Y. Board of Jewish Education and the author of "Suddenly Jewish: Jews Raised as Gentiles Discover their Jewish Roots".