It's THAT Day Again

Well, it’s rolled around again. It’s THAT DAY, you know, the one where I remind you how lucky you are if your mom is still alive.

Look – I do not want to make you feel guilty. Seriously I don’t. But if we are being honest here I will admit that you having a living mom makes me a bit (more than a bit…) jealous.

I know times are tough for everyone right now. If your mom is in a nursing home you can’t get in to visit her. If your mom lives in another state you can’t fly to see her. Heck, even if your mom lives right across town you can’t give her a proper hug (at least you shouldn’t!). It sucks.

But do you know what sucks worse?? When your mom is dead. When you know that there is no “end to the distance”. When the only time you can see your mom is in dreams and that is very rare and when you wake-up she is still dead. It is like social distancing forever. How does that sound?

My mom and her 3 daughters.
It is really hard to believe only 2 people in this photo are still alive.

Again – no guilt trip intended. But hopefully a wake-up call. Cuz, news flash, your mom isn’t going to live forever (none of us are). So, if your mother is still alive, here is what I ask you to do.

· Call her

· Facetime or Zoom with her

· Send her a proper letter

· Mail her a card

· Bake her some cookies, ring her doorbell, and wave to her from a safe distance when she opens the door and finds them

· Sit out on the lawn with her and chat (staying at least 6 feet apart)

· And TAKE A PHOTO WITH HER

Because when she is gone, it will be memories like that and photos that you have left. And trust me, you will want a lot of those.

Happy Mother’s Day

Love,

The Girl Who Can Only Visit Her Mom In a Cemetery (and once got into a big row with a cemetery worker when they hadn’t plowed the roads so she couldn’t drive in to visit. She threatened to walk through super deep snow to get to the gravesite, then realized sitting in the warm car crying was a safer choice…)

P.S. - Seriously, tell her you love her today, ok?

My parents were always up for ANYTHING! Here they are on a Duck Tour of DC, when our amphibeious vehicle
went from LAND to RIVER!

Comments

Blue said…

I love you and was thinking of you all day yesterday!

May 11, 2020 at 6:32 AM

Content to Live

This is 59. Birthday photo 2025 - National Arboretum in the rain It is a strange age. It’s older than my sister Annette ever got to experience. It is on the verge of “old”. Or wait, is it old? Is it just that what “old” is keeps getting pushed back further and further, so actually we hit it a long time ago? I don’t feel “old”. But, as always for a decade or so, I feel “resolute”. I feel “accepting”. I feel realistic . I know my time on earth is limited, and I know I have used up over half of it. Some of it I wasted – watching movies but not really paying attention, sleeping, dusting (though to be honest I have not wasted much time on that one, one look at our house will tell you that). Some of it I relished - skiing down mountains, splashing in waterfalls and ocean waves, looking out at cornfields, clouds, and forests from high in the sky. Some of it I suffered – watching loved ones die, witnessing friendships fading away,...

Damn Skin

I honestly don’t know how long it has been there. David and I both have this sort of weird disassociation with time – him much worse than me. But both of us really don’t have a handle on how long things are, how far in the past they were, etc. It is like time blurs or something (which is why neither of us can ever, for the life of us, remember what anniversary we are on until we count back). So, filling out the blank on the processing questionnaire that asks “How long has this issue been there” is sort of impossible. But how do you explain to medical professionals that you DON’T KNOW? So I lie. “Around a year, maybe a year and a half…”. I could just write “Your guess is as good as mine”, but that would be even less helpful and harder to explain, so I assign a number. So yeah, I have this “bump”. That’s what I called it. A “bump” on the right side of the bridge of my nose, very near my eye. It has been there “for...

The Girl Who Can't Ride a Bike

I am “the girl who can’t ride a bike”. I guess to be accurate, I should say that I WAS “the girl who can’t ride a bike”. But it was such a big part of my identity growing up, that the never formalized (but often teased about) nickname stuck in my psyche. You know how most kids love to jump on their bikes and pedal around the neighborhood once they have figured out how to balance, brake, and GO? Yeah, that wasn’t me. I wasn’t that kid. I am not sure WHAT really happened. The one thing I do remember is being on a bike in my family’s garage in Omaha, Nebraska trying to ride my bike. It must’ve been winter, otherwise, why wouldn’t I have been outdoors?? But I think my foot slipped off the pedal and I know for sure my knee hit the handlebar. It hurt. I remember crying. But I am guessing that it hurt my pride more than it hurt my knee. I think I was already past the age where kids were “supposed” to ride a bike. ...

Random Thoughts

Search This Blog