Who's On First

Sorry, Steve... you're my first "victim!"

Mom & Aaryn

Our mother passed away in 2007.  She had a debilitating stroke a few years earlier.  She was in a nursing home for a while; however, she didn't like it there and we felt that we were really doing most of the work taking care of her ourselves so we moved her back to her house and took care of her there with less intrusion and she was a lot happier.  Nothing against the nursing home folks, they were great; but, it was just a lot more fun being at home.  When she was in the nursing home four of us took care of  her in shifts.  We just kept up the shifts when we moved her home.  My oldest brother had the weekday early morning shift feeding her breakfast and taking care of her until noonish.  Then my oldest sister got off work and fed her lunch and took care of her until either my older sister or I would get there to feed her supper and stay with her until she went to sleep.  My oldest sister (who actually lives about an hour away) stayed in town at Mom's all week and usually stuck around in the evening also and then would go home on the weekend and my older sister and I would alternate staying at Mom's house all weekend.

We had so much fun - especially late on Sunday nights when it was Silent Movie Sunday on one of the cable channels and Cindy and I would make up our own lines for the movies!  We'd crack her up!  Mom might not have been able to talk; but, she sure could laugh!

I know... I know... you're thinking what could possibly be funny about this?!!  Well, give me a minute and I'll get there.

Groucho

I was pretty entertaining to my mom.  Sometimes I almost felt like all I had to do was walk in the door and she was laughing at me!  (Remember in my first blog post I mentioned that laughter is the best medicine.  One thing that she kept right up to the very end was her sense of humor!)  I grabbed lunch one afternoon and stopped up at Mom's and was sitting with her entertaining her with some stories when I noticed that she had a goofy look on her face and her expression wasn't changing.  I was in the bathroom with her and Steve was in the living room.  I yelled for Steve to call 911.  Poor Steve has NEVER had to call 911 for anything before.  I don't remember if we had a land line telephone in her house at that time or not; but, Steve was using his cell phone.  I got a wash cloth and was trying to get her to respond.  Steve popped into the doorway and said frantically, "What do I dial?!" My response was, "9-1-1."  Now, I'm in the bathroom - freaking out - still trying to get her to respond.  Steve shows back up in the doorway with the phone to his ear and says, "What's the number?!"  I'm thinking - "It's only three numbers and two of them are the same.  What isn't he getting?!!  So, I respond more slowly (and probably irritatedly) "9---1---1!"  Then he said, "No... the house number!"  I think that he ended up going outside and looking at the front of the house.

Now, in Steve's defense, he did have to relay a message to me from the 911 operator to calm down before I hyperventilated!!  LOL!

(Taking Steve home one night after that, I told him that I realized why he bought the house he did.  All four numbers in his address are the same number - that ought to be easy for him to remember!)

Anyway... In the meantime, I had called Cindy and she flew to Mom's from work - beating the paramedics.  Then all of the paramedics showed up and that tiny house was FULL!

They transported her to the hospital and worked some magic and she started to respond.  The first thing I told her about when she was a little more with it was Steve's and my version of "Who's on First!"  I'm sure the hospital staff thought that we were crazy all cackling in the emergency room!  I can still hear her laughing about it!

I love the Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral.  The last part is:http://bit.ly/Up0ZYJThe last part is:

Nothing is past; nothing is lost
One brief moment and all will be as it was before
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

When we're all get together again, the people on Earth will probably hear us howling with laughter from above! I hope it's from above anyway!!  ;0)

http://bit.ly/Up0ZYJ