Entering a new phase in life

It is odd to me, physically getting older.   Emotionally I feel like the "me" I 've always been.  Probably more grounded,  more understanding of a lot of things, and having no understanding for others.   On the precipice of being a senior citizen myself, knowing my time with my own Mom is probably more precious now than it has ever been.  She speaks a lot about dying, that she knows her time is short now at eighty-three, and it breaks my heart inside to know how everything will change.   I lost my Dad when I was twenty-six, two of my children have proceeded me in death, but nothing effects me (though all those things shook the foundations of what makes me who I am) like thought of losing my Mom.  She has always been the force to reckon with in the family, and the sun which we orbited as siblings, though time has loosened that gravitational pull for some  due to time constraints and geographic separation, Mom has always been my anchor.  We've experienced some close calls...an exploding gallbladder that nearly killed her, emergency heart bypass, valve replacement, lots of near misses.   Now the enemy is time.   Just simply time.  Her skin is paper thin,  and blood thinners keep her looking bruised.  Tiny and frail, with a painful little old woman shuffle.  My power house of a Mom is old.   Hard to say.   Harder to accept.   I've been in denial for awhile now.  If I didn't own it, it couldn't really happen, could it?  Today she was puttering along.  Still lives on her own.  Asks for so damned little from a family that she has truly given a lot.   She will never read this.  But today I have to say, I love you Mom.   I hope I have you for another twenty years.