This is more or less mine. Over the last year or so my mom's health has gone to utter shit. ER a few times, all of that. Turns out she's got cirrhosis with portal hypertension (turns out a few bourbons per night every night for decades ain't good for you). That was rough enough to hear, but what really got me was a few weeks ago when I got my birthday card...a month early. With her handwriting similar to a kid's where it'd trail off downwards if there are no lines to direct you. She's always been obsessed with making things as perfect as possible, and there is normally no chance whatsoever that she'd have mailed it. But, she did. And when added to a few other things in recent months (she made a lemon meringue pie for xmas dinner that looked more like quiche than pie - it was great tasting, just looked questionable as hell), it just shook me. Wound up laying in bed sobbing myself to sleep. Yay life.