by Kathy Brasby | Mar 14, 2014 | Seasons
Freida leaned close to her granddaughter. “See that man over there?”
She pointed across the living room to a man sitting in a recliner watching television.
Her granddaughter, who was arrived the evening before Thanksgiving, nodded.
“Well,” Freida continued, her white hair in tight curls on her head. “He lost his wife, you know. Poor man.”
Jill pulled her head back. “Oh, no, Grandma. That’s my dad. You’re talking about my mom and she’s in town right now. She’ll be home in a little while.”
“Oh.” Freida cocked her head to the side. “All right.”
Five minutes later, she leaned toward Jill. “See that man over there?”
Jill took a deep breath. She’d already heard the story about Grandma’s Christmas choir – when Grandma was a teenager. Every five minutes or so, she heard the story again.
“Mom,” she asked when her mother walked in the back door, “what do you do about Grandma’s repeating stories?”
“Do the best you can,” she said.
Jill sat down with her grandmother again. “Did you sing in the choir, Grandma?”
Freida’s eyes lit up. “Let me tell you about the time when the Christmas tree caught on fire in the church.”
Jill knew the story. During the Christmas eve service, the candles on the tree bit into the wood and an usher grabbed a bucket from the back of the church.
“He tossed the water from the bucket onto the tree,” Freida said. “But he missed the tree and hit the choir. Bucket and all!” And she laughed.
Jill took her hand. “Do you have any bills to pay, Grandma?”
Freida tilted her head, her eyes puzzled. “I don’t know.”
“Do you worry about getting fired from your job?”
“I don’t think I have a job. I’m an old woman.”
Jill took her hand. “Do you have any worries?”
“What’s there to worry about?”
Jill kissed her grandmother on the forehead. “God has been kind,” she said.
Freida nodded. “I always remember that.”
by Kathy Brasby | Mar 11, 2014 | Stories
They were almost bookends. I watched my husband and teenage son stroll into the convenience store while I kept guard on the gas pumping into our SUV.
Both wore spandex cycling shirts in blazing yellow with all sorts of advertising slogans plastered in place, paid for by many cycling sponsors.
Souvenirs of a recent biking race.
And our son stood as tall as his dad now, with dark hair that matched his father’s.
Yep. Bookends.
And sweaty ones.
“Are we going home now?” Our youngest daughter hung her 12-year-old head out the window.
“We have to get their bikes loaded on top,” I said, “and then we will.”
She shook her head. “How far did they ride this morning?”
“About 30 miles.”
“Glad it was them.” She hopped out of the car. “Can we go inside? I want to buy a snack.”
“Sure.”
We found her snack and then came back outside. The SUV had been moved to the curb in front of the store and my husband, still wearing his yellow cycling jersey, was bent over the engine compartment with the hood raised.
That was so like him. He was probably checking the oil. He took good care of details.
The thought of how well he cared for his family welled up in me and I walked up behind him to give him a hug and kiss from behind.
My arms were out for the embrace when I stopped.
This was not my husband.
This was my son. Bookends, remember?
I never told him how close he came to a snuggly hug and kiss from his mom. I have always been pretty sure he really didn’t want to know.
by Kathy Brasby | Mar 7, 2014 | Seasons
The doctor searched the emergency room cubicle until she found my eyes. Then she took a quick breath. “We have the x-rays. Her hip is broken.”
I was holding my mother’s hand as she lay still on the examining table. The pain had escalated while we’d been at the hospital and she was now under the influence of morphine. She had no idea what the doctor had said.
I drew a longer breath than the doctor. “So what are our options?
“Hip replacement surgery. Or do nothing.” The doctor’s eyes were kind and she waited until I responded. “This is considered major surgery.”
Mom, at 83, was already trying to recuperate from a stroke nine months earlier. Could she withstand a surgery?
My sister stood across the table from me and our eyes met.
“How soon do we have to decide?” she said.
The doctor shrugged. “You can talk about it with family. The surgeon would do it as soon as possible. Probably this afternoon.” She stepped to the doorway. “I’ll check back in a few minutes.”
“This is an awful decision,” my sister said. “She might not survive the surgery.”
“I know.”
Mom was sleeping. Before the morphine had kicked in, she’d been in tremendous pain.
“We have to give her a chance.” My sister said the words that I was thinking.
Within two hours, our mother was wheeled away by a surgeon. We hugged her and prayed for her. We assured her of our love for her. She could respond to none of it.
Would we see her again?
Our brother arrived a little later. “Any news?”
We explained our options. “She might not survive the surgery but we had to give her a chance for something better.”
He nodded. “What else could you do?”
We all knew Mom. And that made a hard decision a little clearer.
by Kathy Brasby | Mar 4, 2014 | Hope
I’m all for devoted mothers but this teetered at the ridiculous line.
We live on a hobby farm and at one time had a brace of Moscovy ducks. I had to look this up but did you know that a group of ducks can be called a brace, badelynge, bunch or a flock?
While we’re discussing names, a male duck is a drake and a female duck is a …. duck.
That seems wrong, somehow. Not only are the females blessed with the job of keeping the eggs warm for a month while staring at the blank wall of a barn, but they don’t even get a special name.
Brace yourself for this story about a duck badelynge which resulted in a bunch of ducklings added to our flock.
Phew. Couldn’t resist but I promise I’m done with those names now.
Probably.
But the great thing about our ducks was that they were wonderful mothers. Springtime would bring us several mother ducks leading a line of fuzzy yellow babies, a la Make Way for Ducklings.
One day we stumbled onto a nest of eggs. Maybe this was a whole brace of eggs. I’m not sure. We couldn’t count them all.
With two ducks sitting on them.
We guessed the two ducks had started nests close together and the eggs had merged into one gigantic nest. Yeah, weird.
So the mothers sat on their eggs together. At least they had someone to talk to while waiting the coming ducklings.
Twenty-one ducklings hatched.
But there aren’t DNA tests for ducklings (well, not on our farm for sure) and we had two ducks with all these babies. Who belonged to whom?
It didn’t turn out to be a problem. The two mothers led the way with a long winding line of yellow fuzzy ducklings waddling behind. A long line.
We had added more than a bunch to our duck flock. We’d collected a whole badelynge.
Don’t you think those mamas deserved a more amazing name than duck?
by Kathy Brasby | Feb 28, 2014 | Seasons
I helped my dad shuffle up the steps into his house and I laid his mail on the kitchen counter. He slowly worked his way to his recliner and dropped in.
Mom was in the hospital following heart valve replacement surgery. Dad and I had made the 60-mile trek every day to visit her in her recovery. At 88, he couldn’t drive anymore. To be honest, we were a little nervous leaving him alone while Mom was gone.
“Do you need anything before I go home?” I shuffled through the stack of envelopes. “Uh, what is this bill?” I handed him the envelope.
“Our health insurance,” he said. “I’ll get it.”
“We don’t want to miss any payments with Mom in the hospital.” It was a joke when I said it, but then I saw an envelope attached to his refrigerator.
A stamped return envelope to his health insurance company.
“What’s this?” I handed it to him.
He squinted and leaned forward. “I haven’t mailed that yet. I’ll get it.”
“Let’s open this,” I held the new bill and sliced it open. “Dad, this is the current bill. Is that envelope on the refrigerator last month’s payment?”
“I can’t remember.” He shifted his weight, looking for his TV remote. “I’ll get it out to the mail.”
“How about if I pay this bill today?” I could sign their checks so that I was able to make this payment immediately.
“Sure, if you want to.”
I wrote the check for the current month and then took both payments home where I mailed them from my house.
And held my breath, hoping the insurance company wouldn’t balk at the coming hospital bills for Mom’s surgery.
They didn’t but that was the month I switched their insurance payment to an automatic debit from the bank.
Who wants to take chances like that, even if Dad did think he had it covered?
