FIFTY-FOUR AND FINE

Tomorrow is my birthday. I figure that anyone on FACEBOOK will already realize this, so, no use in ignoring the date.

Usually, terrible things occur on or around this date. Everything from deaths of friends and relatives to Mom's first almost-liver transplant. As it goes, so far, Mom DID fall down the back porch stairs, snared by my sister's dog's leash. (My sister, the nurse-- who moved back in with the parental units, and her dog-- to "help out". ) My nurse sister (with the dog in tow ) was at my cop brother's house, bar-b-cuing, on Sunday afternoon. Mom and Dad and dog had left the party, early. Mom was helping dog take a pee break when dog saw cat in the yard. Dog, of course, went for cat, tipping Mom into a header off the porch. Mom landed on her face, on the flagstones. Dog did not pull a Lassie and howl for help--nor did she curl up around Mom's bleeding head and wait for rescue. Dog took, only reappearing long after Mom hauled her broken-ribbed self up the porch, into the kitchen, and fainted on 84 year old Dad.

Dad thought Mom was dead. (Dad weighs about 135.) He broke Mom's faint, but barely. Then, he called nurse sister and cop brother, still bar-b-cuing with the rest of the family. Nurse sister and cop brother called 911. Paramedics assured everyone, when they all arrived, that Mom had only fainted and not died. Then, they rushed her to the hospital.

For three days, the doctors watched Mom do what Mom does quite well. She amazed them. Even with three fractured ribs, a sprained ankle, a sprained wrist, facial stitches and multiple huge abrasions on her legs and side, Mom was up out of bed and moving. "I get stiff if I don't."

She wasn't even upset with the dog. (This, too, is amazing...this dog has gone through as many medical procedures as Mom, herself, and so, for this reason alone, Mom has finally "bonded" with an animal...) So they let her come home. Since she is also battling lymphoma , they didn't want her battered and bruised 80 year old body to risk catching something else, while in the hospital. Mom was thrilled. "I told the doctors I should come home..."

When one of the sibs finally e-mailed me about the accident, last week, I called Mom, immediately. Seems she is quite chipper and is less sore than poor Dad, who wrenched his arthritic back trying to catch her. In fact, the only thing Mom is pissed about is the loss of her ratty old bathrobe, left behind (and tossed out--thank god--by the staff) at the hospital.

"I know I have all those designer robes you kids keep giving me, but, that one was short, all cotton, lightweight, soft, zip- up and I've had it for years..." Which was the point, I guess. (Secretly, I think she liked it because it showed off her legs. For an eighty year old mother of five, Mom's got great legs, still...though she'll never admit it.) All the expensive spa and designer robes we've given her for a thousand Mothers' Days, birthdays, Christmases and hospital stays are lined up, neatly, in her closet. Unworn. (Full Length. Plush and brilliant.)

Other sister, who is also temporarily camped out at the parental units abode, got the blame for "leaving the housecoat at the hospital" when she picked Mom up. So, other sister went to K-Mart (the DREADED K-MART!!!!!) and bought an almost exact replica of the 25 year old cotton, shortie, zip-up, light-weight housecoat, after work, on Monday. (Other sister shuddered through the entire experience--not being exactly a "K-MART type"...)

When I called, Mom was prancing around in the new housecoat, quite happily showing off her still-black and blue and yellow legs, and predicting when the stitches in her scalp were coming out. I could hear the dog yipping in the background. (Dad didn't come to the phone.)

Feeling, as usual, helpless and distant from this drama, I ordered a Land's End similar garment for Mom. It came in rhododendrum--which is a color she may accept. (It's "feminine".) It is also short, lightweight and zip-up. The only drawback is that it has a hood. AND they call it a 'cover up'. Mom may object that it makes her look like a monk...or a 'street person'...or that it is only 'fit for the beach'...(It didn't come from Sears, or K-Mart.)

I figure, I'll wait and see. She's supposed to receive it on my birthday--tomorrow. It is a kind of mail-order irony, I suppose. If this is the only bad news I receive, I'll chalk this birthday up as one of the good ones. Hah!