Life With Mom (Part 11)

For the past three weeks, Mom has been attending Sunday masses on TV.  She finds it hard to walk when it is raining and the streets are slippery when wet.  Sometimes, she drags her feet when she walks. This morning though, I asked her to go with us to attend the Sunday mass at the nearby parish , a five-minute tricycle ride from our place.  The weather is just right, nary a sunshine in view but it is windy.

Sometimes she complains that she finds it hard to breathe so my brother has to accompany her to her internist for another check-up. She underwent an ECG and was prescribed a blood thinner which she has to take for a month on top of her other medications and maintenance.  I explained to her not to focus too much on what she feels, that is so stressful.  She always tells me that what she does here is “sleep and eat”. I told her to take a rest while she is here with us.  I know, she sometimes forgets that when you are getting old,  the aches and pains  are more pronounced.

She used to avoid having her photo taken but that has changed  in the last few days. I always tell her that I’ll send her pics to my youngest brother whom she hasn’t seen for so long because the family is based in Tulsa.  She is amazed at the number of photos kept in my gallery mostly shots of flowers, food and Nate with the latter having the most of it.

Mom at 87….

The wrinkles and gray hair speak of  life’s journey, the number of lessons learned along the way  and wisdom’s highlights too.  Some people always say that when you reach the age of 80, you are so blessed and beyond that, everything is a bonus.  Maybe that is true in a way because life nowadays is so stressful.  My mom is the youngest among four girls so you can just imagine, the eldest is now around 95 or older.

Sometimes I wonder, are we luckier than their generation because we are surrounded by gadgets and things that make life easier? Mom never learned to use a cellphone except to shout over the phone (she is hard of hearing so she has a tendency to make her voice louder) to us and say, “kumusta“? She never learned the use of computer but she knew how to use a typewriter, not the one-finger touch system but all fingers locked into their proper places on top of the keyboard.  Sometimes, I wonder what she is thinking while deftly playing solitaire every afternoon  before  watching the three-o’clock news. She  depends on the news tickers because she could not understand the newscast. Oh but she enjoys a good movie on CinemaOne and always waits for Maalaala Mo Kaya  every Saturday night. She shouts with  Luis Manzano’s audience  on Minute to Win It every afternoon.  Come to think of it, she is more updated with the news than I am.

She  always asks  why some people do not want to bury Marcos at Libingan  followed by a question of why  there  are so many people dying on the streets.  Let me see…it is hard to explain, can you?

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