My mother came for a visit.
It was her first one since her stroke.
She’d done well with texting me her location every 20 minutes, as I’d instructed, for the entire 4 hour drive.
I knew that it had seemed kind of bossy.
I just wanted to know she was alive.
It’s funny to parent your parent,
but as I explained to her with a smile,
sometimes it’s for their own good.
I tried not to think too much about the walking stick she used to come in the door,
or the wrist brace for her hand that’s been hurting,
or the slower, more tired way that she spoke.
I could tell she wanted life to feel as normal as possible,
which is something I feel these days deep in my own soul,
so I treated her how I always treat her.
She has always been strength to me, and
I wanted her to know.
She stayed for 9 days doing all she could, I think, to prove that she was still all there.
She always insists on washing my dishes.
She always has me cut her hair.
She helped all of the girls with their homework, and she sat in the red leather chair as we talked about the same kinds of things that we always do,
proving to me that my true home is still standing.
It doesn’t matter what is going on outside these walls.
She talked of wanting to visit friends she has missed since moving away from here two years ago,
and I sighed, wanting to keep her in a bubble.
I asked her to please just be safe, and
asked her to please text from every place that she stopped so that I would know where she was.
On Tuesday she called up a dear friend asking if they could meet up.
This friend has an illness confining her to a wheelchair, and she does not get out very often,
so my mom offered to just go to her.
A Nothing Fancy day.
“Don’t even worry about combing your hair!”
Just two friends meeting for lunch.
This friend has recently lost her ability to drive,
and her freedom has felt stripped away.
My mom reported sensing a deep sadness in her eyes when she first arrived to see her that day.
They talked about how their lives are changing,
and the grief that it can bring out.
They shared in the ache of changing.
A thing real life and friendship are never really without.
“You know what I miss more than anything?” Her friend said, sharing what hurt most to her.
“I miss just singing in a choir,”
and my mom, in her braced hand, said,
“I never really play much anymore, but how about we just go give it a try?”
Together, these two well-aging women went slowly, helping one another into the next room,
where my mother sat down at a dusty piano and began playing all of this friend’s favorite tunes.
Both of them have beautiful voices, and that is one thing that remains unchanged.
Both have lifetimes of being asked by people if they will please sing.
Neither of them have forgotten this part of them, after all,
no stroke or disease can steal who we are inside.
We get to keep that kind of thing.
One of the songs was one my mom had written, herself, several years ago that this friend has loved from the beginning, and as my mom recounted this day I thought to myself:
How powerful playing your song that someone else’s heart knows.
To be known in that way.
How powerful to use your own voice to help someone else live their dream.
May my life be like I sat at a piano and helped someone else sing.
I thought of the little eyes watching us both,
learning how, and who to be.
I hoped that I will pass on this kind of loving to the little ones who are looking up at me.
They couldn’t sing as long and loud as they used to that day.
My mom’s hands ached later that night,
but as she left that day she saw a light in her friend’s eyes that had not been there when she first arrived, all because she had pressed the keys that opened up
a different kind of door.
The kind on the inside.
True friendship is found in giving of yourself in any small way that you can.
I’m sure my mother never thought the strength to change something big still lived in her
weak feeling hands.
Maybe someone in your life needs your music.
The kind you have always played.
Maybe someone you love can be transformed by something small feeling that you can give them today.
Yes, my mom is definitely still in there;
Perhaps more herself than she’s ever been,
because my mom is the kind that sits down at a piano and fights her own weakness
just to give strength to a friend.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
