A Week Before Mother's Day

Carlene, my mother, is a remarkable person--as in one whose incredible vitality is often remarked upon!

Sixty-somethings, including her daughter, are amazed at her vigor and flexibility--and one of her favorite moments is telling people, "I'm ninety" and receiving looks of disbelief.  "NO, you can't be!" people say.

Her memory is better than mine, especially right now when I'm having staggering thoughts and losing words in thin air--which I attribute to lingering effects of anesthesia and/or stopping taking bottled estrogen.  Her endurance and speed when walking are outright intimidating.

I'm sitting today on my porch missing her lively company.  She loves sitting on the porch, reading, talking, and observing everything and everybody moving on the street.  I'm sitting in her chair reading The Little Locksmith, which she already read, and looking out on my yard that is beautiful with bright yellow Esperanza (Spanish for "hope"), blue plumbago, Meyer's lemon, a caladium, purslane, and herbs--not yet placed in the ground, but scattered around the newly mown yard in black pots.  The crepe myrtle and bougainvillea are about ready to start putting out flowers.

"I'm paying for you to have a yard man," she said.  "You don't have to do everything yourself."

"How can you pay Phyllis to do your yard all the time?" her friends ask her, half-teasing--because affording isn't actually an issue for her.

"I can't afford not to," she always says. Her independence means so much to her, and she feels that she can't do everything she used to do.  Yard work, which she loves, can trigger her stenosis which resulted from shingles a few years back.  "Besides I have money that hasn't even been spent yet!"

When she comes we rarely cook.  We both cooked three meals a day for enough years that we have decided we can take a break from cooking.  We've eaten at Cappy's, Lisa's Mexican Food, the Blanco Cafe, Adalantes, Kate's porch, and Twin Sisters--some of our favorite places.  We've completed a jigsaw puzzle and visited four nurseries and bought colorful plants and a  little tiny tree we hope grows up tall enough to soften the view of the new house across the street.

I'm beyond lucky--not just to have a living mother at my age, but one who is as active and lively as ever, a friend as well as a mother who will undoubtedly soar past 100 one day with flying colors.

We've visited with several friends who have stopped by or invited us over for a meal, and she loves them all.  Jan told her yesterday, "You're my new best friend."

Pam, who stopped by for a leisurely porch visit yesterday, commented that Carlene "gets up out of her chair faster than we do."

Carlene and Pam

It's enough to make me want to start walking three miles every morning--which maybe one day I can say I'm doing, just not yet, not today.