At this very moment, she’s next door deciding how her father will die. Just over the wall, I am begging insurance companies for a better way to help my mother live. Fourteen miles across town,  my 89 year old neighbor who, last week, I serendipitously found dying on his living room floor, is flanked by two sons in town to decide which of the two procedures Dad will get and doing high school math on the survival rates of each. None of us are doctors but each of us are involuntary enrollees in med school crash courses, playing God to save the lives and what’s left of them for the ones who gave us ours.

We’re out of paid time off, low on hope and tired. Hospital dining rooms are our kitchens, Googling medical terms are our Friday nights and everyone asks when we’ll be home again.

We’re not alone but that’s the way it feels if we can ever find the time to.

Life is a killer.

None of us are surprised by the fact. But none of us are prepared for it either. Helping our aging parents through their last years, months and moments is a part of being 56 that we hoped would come much later or not at all.

Some adult children in denial drop parents off at nursing homes and retirement communities far away to play bingo and spend their “golden” years apart and alone which are, at best, aluminum foil. But for the others who know that family is everything, they accept the challenge and fight for every last second of time to spend with the people who spent decades preparing us for hard times just like these..

For Lori, Todd, Vance, Shelly and the thousands like us in the world, we know that this is what life is all about. It won’t last forever. And when they are gone, we’ll be next in line. And like our parents who have come and gone before us, we will be comforted that we taught our own children differently.  And like us, they will have learned:

God knows, love’s decisions are the most painful.

It’s been so long since I was two

I’ve forgotten exactly what couples do.

Hold hands in bed?

Watch the other one poo?

I really don’t know what couples do. 

Do they talk all night?

Is their love still true?

Now it’s all so different,

I wish I knew,

The kinds of things that couples do. 

Do they spend their Saturdays in the park?

Do they cuddle closely in the dark?

Do they still snuggle and coo

Like I used to?

Now I’ve no idea what couples do.

Spend their last red cent

Showing all that they’ve meant

To each other all of their years?

Do they know how they’re feeling?

Pray together while kneeling?

Do they still wipe away their tears?

Do couples still do what couples did

When each one was just one?

Or are coupling folk

Of which I’ve spoke

Now just one without a sum?

I’d like to know what couples do

Because one day it may be,

That again I become one

With another someone

And getting it right is important to me.

Don’t call her an old woman,
for she’s lived longer than you with more experiences at more important things in life than you have yet to even consider.
Don’t call her forgetful,
for she still remembers every birthday, anniversary and holiday with a handwritten card while you forget to even make a phone call.
Don’t call her stubborn,
for she’s a wealth of opinions years in the making and voiced for all the right reasons while you still worry what others will think of you.
Don’t call her old-fashioned,
for she can recite decades of memories by heart as though they were yesterday while you rely on Facebook reminders and smartphone photos.

This Mother’s Day, don’t call your mom anything,
just call her.
She’s absolutely worth it… while you still can.

Leave it to me to experience something so ordinary yet so awesome…
When the cardiac surgeon came out with the good news about mom’s open heart surgery just now, I found myself staring, entranced with his hands, while listening to his family report.
All I could think of as he concluded and left was that I had just shaken the hand which, minutes before, had held the very heartbeat of the woman who had made mine and touched it so many times since.
Those who know me know I never use the word awesome unless something truly is.
The news was great today, but staring at the hands of a surgeon who had touched her fleshly heart and then shook my hand with it minutes later was truly an awesome and unforgettable few moments

I Love Lucy.

We could have said goodbye,

Lost track of one another

And gone on with our own

But we couldn’t.

We could have lived the lie

That said it was done and over

And time heals all things

But it doesn’t.

We could have asked why

We didn’t make it or fake it

All these years apart

But we didn’t.

We had so much yet never touched

The friend we called our lover.

Now time has passed and we might last

Enough to soon discover…

That goodbye isn’t all there is

When things just don’t work out.

We’ve shared too much and now as such

We’ve learned what love’s about.

I’m glad we took the time today

To talk it through, make it okay

And be the friends that were in our stars

Closer now, and not so far.

I wonder if this will be the last time I flip her calendar, change her sheets or pull the weeds from her garden. Buy her groceries, get her lunch, or pay her back for all she’s been to me. Run her errands, walk at her side, or hold her hand during one of her spells. I’ll miss playing my jokes on her, winning her smiles, and losing every hand of gin. But the day will soon come when I empty her closets, filled with fond memories and a deep void for all the days I remain. But as I laugh through the tears and chuckle at the moments, I will always smile because while something is now missing, nothing is ever lost.

“Size 7 if you can, but really, anything will do.”

Noticeably ashamed and even more embarrassed about the ask, she walked out with the same uneven pain, now made a little worse that her secret had been discovered.

I hope I never have to ask a stranger for a newer pair of old shoes.

Tattered by the years and scissor trimmed around the flattened soles, she still brushed them each morning and treated them like the blessings they were for carrying her through the day.  Her only pair for as long as she can remember, I had done the unthinkable and asked if they were comfortable, knowing well enough they were now so worn, they were probably permanently injuring her feet and needed replaced with money from someone else.

But humility. A woman from the south learns early on the decorum of it.  You always meet the needs of others and never ask for yourself.  I’d met with her a few times and each visit hurt me to see her walk like that.  She had no money for clothing or shoes. She was budgeting just enough to keep the lights on and some food in the pantry.  So I had to ask the question. If not for her, to relieve my own pain.

But compassion. A man in the business of helping old southern women past their humilities and into a new pair of shoes was worth breaking the southern Georgia rules she’d lived with most of her 89 years.

“Size 7 it is, with a low heel and a sturdy new sole,” I told her. “You need say no more, and nobody else will know. We will never speak of this again, okay?” I assured her and she agreed with a nod.

I never shopped for women’s shoes before. A couple times with my Mom, sure, but this excursion was a secret mission to find a fit and style that would last an old woman the rest of her years and in which she would very likely be buried.  That thought alone made the trip to the store on a Friday morning an emotional one.

I could have shopped Goodwill for a bargain, but this pair was to be an investment that comes in a new box stuffed with the clean white tissue and plastic wrap intact upon delivery for her to open and waft the new leather scent which she would do for at least an hour before trying them on.

She’d lived a hard life. Worked for 60 years at the same job, probably in those same shoes, and retired on a social security income that barely paid her monthly rent and left $123 for everything else.  But she always said she was doing fine and was in no need until I’d spied the pair of shoes that her withered ankles were poured into and the gait that wasn’t because she was old, but because she was prideful and in pain.

Black goes with everything. Well stitched, sturdy thick soled like waitresses wear when they’re on their feet for an entire shift, and $62.30 with tax after the coupon, it was less than the cost of a single lunch for two and much more satisfying.

I showed up at her door unannounced, hung the bag on the handle and went to work.

When I see her again, I will say nothing of the shoes, just as I had promised.

A woman of her word, I expect she will do the same.

Some secrets are best kept and shared in silence, and then only with a few tears.  Because dignity is still a virtue.

Rough night I had,
I hardly sleeped.
Climbed out of bed,
But found I leaped.
Jumped in the shower,
Flew into my pants,
I tried to walk,
But only pranced.

And then recalled,
To my chagrin,
It’s still last month,
Not March I’m in!