Topic #1: Lent. Lent ends today. I failed in my efforts to abstain from junky food—particularly sweets. More than once, I failed. In an effort to be transparent, I’ll repent and write about my indiscretions later.
Topic #2: Mom. My bees-and-honeycomb Tie o’ the Day is pleased to inform y’all that Mom—the Mistress of Dad’s Bee yards for decades—can breathe more easily again, and she’s back safely in her pad at Millard Care and Rehab. She’s glad to be home finally, and hopes she won’t be making a return to the hospital, ever. She says it’s a nice hospital, but she also says NO THANKS to being a patient there again. She prefers her own room at the care center. I vote for that, too.
So Mom is once again where she belongs, and we siblings can again contend with Mom’s stealthy and regular routine of accidentally touching buttons on her phone that shut it off, and then we can’t get in touch with her. That causes us to get on our group text to ask who talked to Mom last and how was she, and which one of us is gonna call the care center to ask some kindly employee to hunt down Mom and turn on her phone, so we can all try to call her at once to make sure she’s in good shape and good spirits, and then we’ll jump back on the group text to update each other about how she is and what she said. We’ll report to each other that Mom’s hanging in there. (It’s 10 o’ clock, do you know where your mother is?)
Mercedes/BT and Ron and I occasionally report and compare the length of our phone conversations with Mom. If she chats with one of us for less than 2 minutes, that means she’s on her way to BINGO or crafts or a musical program some community group has brought into the care center. We’re always happy she’s got new things to see and outside townspeople to converse with. I don’t call Mom as often as Mercedes/BT and Ron check-in with her, because my conversations with Mom tend to be lengthy, no matter what time of the day or night I dial her number. Our conversations go on and on, and on some more. I think Mercedes/BT holds the top ten records for shortest calls with Mom, with some clocking in at around 30 seconds. It’s just one example of how we siblings have our individual styles when we’re each doing the very same thing: calling Mom to check on her. 📞