"I'm tired and I'm living in the last half of my life." Those words aren't mine. They belong to my former English Composition professor and they appeared in an essay he wrote about sitting in a cafe in Paris contemplating his growing older. For some reason they stuck in my head.

And for another reason, they sometimes pop into my head. Like today.

It's been a rough month. Sjogren's Syndrome makes me tired enough--and April is Sjogren's Awareness month, by the way. So I'm going to be talking about it at some point. You were warned. My mother had bronchitis so bad she had to be hospitalized. Long nights and days at the hospital watching her oxygen machine got me thinking that life is indeed short.

It was not long ago that my mother was a lithe lady in high heels wearing hat and gloves with her full skirted dresses as she drove toddlers to the store in her 1945 Buick. Now, the toddlers are senior citizens and she needs a wheelchair. Someone has to pick her up and transfer her to the car. She's paralyzed on one side by a stroke. (And May is National Stroke Awareness, so I'll be talking about that at some point, too. )

So it got to me today, as I tried to not be anxious about the passing of time and its effect on those I love. I'm tired. I'm living in the last half of my life. I'm even a little depressed lately and don't like leaving the house anymore. I thought of my professor and wished I could have these thoughts in the City of Light like he did. I could use some distance from my life. Maybe I could even use a new perspective.

For perspective, there's nobody better than my mom. Apparently seeing life from a motorized wheel chair makes a person bolder. Or maybe it's the stroke. It is said that stroke survivors often are more impulsive--something to do with brain damage. Their personalities can even change. But my mom is still the same--only enhanced. It's like Mom on energy drinks or something. She says the most outrageous things that seem funny but really are like cold buckets of truth tossed in the face.

I told her how I'd been feeling, dragged out, tired, finished, washed up. And she laughed. She laughed long and loud and had to get a drink of water because it set her coughing.

"Look around dear, " she said. "I can't even get out of my chair without help and let me tell you honey, I am not washed up, finished. I'm just tired. But if I'm tired, I take a nap. I have to ASK someone to put me in the bed, but if I want to nap, I ask. You, you don't have to ask. Go take a nap."

It reminded me of the day in the hospital when my daughter, worried that Grandma was dying, texted me and asked if this were true. I told mom and she said, between bites of baked salmon, "Tell her that anybody who can eat like I am is not going to die today!"

So, in the grand tradition of my mom, I am going to make a really good lunch right now and appreciate every single bite. Then, I am going to take a nap. When I wake up, I'm going to go see her. I'm going to bring her some tulips and daffodils in pots and plant them right outside her window. Thinking of it makes me feel better already.

After all, I'm tired and so is she. But neither of us finished. There's some fight in us yet. We're not beaten. Just beat. And as for living in the last half of my life? She's 82, claims the first hundred years are the hardest, and points out that "He who endures to the end will gain everlasting life."

Nothing like a little bucket of cold water in the face to refresh a gal, I always say. Now...to lunch! And beyond!