Mother’s Day

Dearest Rachel –

You might recall that we have a traditional gift we get my mom for Mother’s Day (which, admittedly, often felt like a bit of a cop out, given how easy it was); we would head over to a local florist/garden center, and get her a gift card for the place. And while we tended to disdain gift cards as ‘cash with extra restrictions,’ it seemed to work for her. This way, she could pick out what she wanted for herself at a time of her own choosing.

During the last few years, however, as she grew weaker – she may not have the same health issues as Dad, but she’s only a year younger than he is, and with that advanced age come certain functional restrictions – it fell upon me to do the shopping based on her request. Again, it takes out the element of surprise, but as with any present I would or could get you, it was something that I could be assured that she would want and enjoy. The fact that I was generally buying annuals meant that each year, I had a ready-made present to get he for the upcoming holiday celebrating her.

During the past week, as I would sit with Dad in his room at the rehabilitation center, there has been a lot of time with little to do but talk with each other (or, if he needed to get some shut-eye – which he often does, as the night staff insists on checking in on him around three or so, thereby interrupting what might have been a full night’s sleep – I will go through my news feed since I don’t much bother with at the ‘office’ anymore these days). Some things have to do with various preparations for when the end comes, since even if he does recover, he knows he doesn’t have much time left, especially in comparison to the time he’s spent. But much of it has to do with more day-to-day things that he can’t currently attend to himself at home, like the checkbook and bills…

…as well as ideas for occasions such as this. I don’t know when it came up, but when it did, I mentioned this ‘usual’ gift Daniel and I would get Mom, and wondered whether we should get a gift card or simply go shopping for her – particularly since I didn’t know the specific flowers she might want to plant this year.

However, he surprised me by suggesting that we take her to do the shopping instead. That way, she could pick out exactly what she wanted, and Daniel and I could lug everything back to the house for her and her niece (who offered to help) to plant them at a later date. Given that she’s at Dad’s side that much more than even I am, he concluded that she needed a chance like this to get out of the room, and surround herself with a little bit of color, as well as something to look forward to in the near future.

After some wrangling with Mom about timing – she insisted on taking things day-by-day, especially regarding Dad’s condition, which while understandable, makes it hard to plan when to bring Daniel along – we finally agreed upon heading out yesterday. So after alerting Daniel about these plans – which he was fine with, but needed the heads-up in order to cut his Thursday bath time down to a reasonable amount – I put in my now-usual morning at the ‘office,’ headed home to pick him up, and then drove over to the rehab center to collect Mom.

We were only going to stay there briefly, as I didn’t know how long she might take browsing the aisle’s at the garden center. Additionally, the scratchy throat that I’d been dealing with for the last couple of days (and had been denying the significance of, in the hopes that it might suffice to cause it to retreat without further incident) had started to bloom into a full head cold, with pressure on my face like a pair of swim goggles that were a size or two too small. However, when we arrived, Dad was within a half-hour of being taken to physical therapy (or so we thought; it turned into a full hour of waiting, but also other little issues that needed tending to), so we decided to wait until that was over. Once he would come back from therapy and be returned to bed, we would be free to head out as he rested from his labors.

This necessitated us to stay there until nearly a quarter to four, but at least we were able to assure ourselves that he was doing well and settled in after all that before leaving with his blessings.

Now, as you might know (or not; bear in mind that I’ve no idea if and how time runs over on your side of the veil), yesterday also happened to be Thursday, which we usually spend having dinner at the folks’ house. Of course, that’s not something that we’ve been able to do since Dad’s hospitalization, but at this point, since we’d been given license to make sure that Mom gets a break from watching over him all day, every day, it seemed appropriate that we take her to her favorite seafood place for a nice (if informal; that’s just how the place rolls) dinner.

All in all, everything worked out surprisingly well. Granted, I hope whatever I’m dealing with doesn’t spread, but hopefully a day of rest of my own will remedy that; it’ll rather have to, as I’m going to be in the booth tomorrow, like I told you about yesterday. Anyway, thanks for keeping an eye on us throughout all this, and if you could see your way to wish us well going forward, that would be appreciated. After all, we’re likely to need it.