April
It's getting to the point where I can't post as often as I'd like (a welcome relief for somme of you, I'm sure), sometimes, the most I can do is summarize the whole month.
I began the month with what I always assume is a cold but, is more likely an allergy. I took April Fools Day off from work and missed Mass the following Sunday, to see if I could get ahead of the symptoms. Thanks to popping lots of zinc capsules, I felt well enough to visit Mom after skipping a week.
April was usually a welcome month in Old Mommyland; it's the month when the forsythia bloom in the front yard. I'm pretty sure there's a stand of them somewhere around the nursing home; they made me realize that the nursing home now feels more like Mommyland than the real Mommyland does.
I was wheeling Mom back to her room, feeling a little annoyed with Jose, the young PA who often feeds Mom at dinnertime. He almost never gives me a straight answer when I ask whether she's eaten. It's always something insouciant and slightly sphinx-like as in, "No complaints.". When I bent close Mom's ear to ask how she was, I was encouraged in a strange way, by her answer. She said, "I wish I coulkd say I felt all right." It actually startled me. I had not realized that Mom, in her current state, had retained the ability to express irony.
I couldn't wait to tell Sis the good news. I dialed her on the cell phone while holding Mom's hand with my other. But, when Sis answered she led with four words every older brother shrinks from hearing: "I'm glad you called." What followed was a nearly ten minute recitation of some legal papers she and Big Brother had received in the mail.