M is for Mother's Day

Yes, Mother's Day feels like ages ago now. But this post has been writing itself in my head since then.

I returned home for Mother's Day weekend for two reasons. One, my father was moved out of the ICU to an LTAC facility and I wanted to check it out. Also, my mother may not remember that I came to see her on Mother's Day, but *I* would know. And that was important to me.

Sunday morning, I had a lot of running around to do and I had overslept until almost 11:30. My sister had such a brilliantly simple idea for Mother's Day that I decided to mimic it. She simply sent Mom a card that said she loved her. Duh. So I quickly perused the cards at Kroger, focusing on the Snoopy ones. I have been a Snoopy freak since I was a kid, so it was appropriate. I also added a new word search puzzle book and a box of Good n Plentys.

I am all excited to spend a little happy time with my mom before heading home. I walk in and she looks at me and just starts complaining. This place is awful and unorganized. People are being too helpful. She sat through the budget meeting and no one knew what they were talking about, so she turned to my dad and said......

On and on she droned, as cranky as cranky could be. It was a little disappointing. Finally she started to get distracted by her card and I started showing her pictures from my garden on my phone. That always seems to be the key. Pictures of the flowers. I got a lump in my throat when she asked if I had shown them to my father, yet.

I also kept showing her pictures of family and talking about them. One of her fellow "lost" friends came into the room to chat with us for a bit. And finally my hour was over. I made up some excuse to leave. She asked, as always, if I was going to be back later that evening. I hate to lie, but I said yes. And she smiled, hugged me, and let me leave.