Her voice is afraid

She has been a rock in my life for years. That is not always a compliment. Rocks are used in blogs to display a sense of stability but they also can mean they are unmoving. My mother can be both. She has loved me for years and years and I grew up with the great gift of knowing that no matter what I was loved. Yet she still doesn't like it that I'm not attending the denomination that I grew up in and bugs me ocassionally to get back to her particular church...sigh...

But now she is 88 years old. She doesn't hear as well as she used to and I often have to raise my voice to communicate with her. I find it easy to make fun of her in her old age, giggling about her bad hearing and how she gets confused. I'm ashamed of that. I just so often find humor so quickly and sometimes she inspires that laughter but I'm not proud of it. I really think I ought to edit that out of this blog as a matter of fact. But keeping secrets isn't very healthy for me and I can't run my life trying to make others like me. So I admit it.

She called me the other day. Got all confused with her phone, her cell and long distance. She was afraid. I wasn't answering the phone. She called repeatedly and I didn't answer the phone. I'm not sure where I was but I wasn't available. I can't describe how horrible that feels in my heart.

I knew this day would come. Where mom & I finally switch roles. I take care of her and she listens to me. She hands over the complicated, the stressful, the long plan and the tough decision to me and the other kids. I never talked to my father about this day. He died back in 1988. But tonight as I'm sitting at my home office I feel like I can see my dad's eyes, his voice and his love and he is telling me that he and I had an unspoken agreement that we didn't need to express or shake hands with. He is tell me that now is the time that I move up and take my place next to his bride and guide her through these final years.

It's not a duty driven by guilt. It's an honor, a sacred trust motivated by a son's love of his mother.

I won't disappoint you Dad.

-Kelly