The Days of the Journey

I call my mother every day now. I didn't used to do that -- she never encouraged it when she was younger, feeling that girls who called their mothers every day weren't independent enough. I never understood that, but I do now. It's twofold: 1) my mother was a somewhat distant woman for most of her adult life; and 2) she lost her own mother just as she (my mom) was entering adulthood, really -- in the days when phone calls were expensive and thus were utilized only infrequently and for important messages. So, she never knew how rich it could be to talk to your mother often.

Now that my mom is ill, I call every day just to say hello and gauge how she's doing (as determined by the tone of her voice -- I wonder if she knows that yet!). We exchange small talk about what's new (not much) and I try to find something funny to say.

Yesterday she had a very good day and had gone out to lunch with an old friend. They'd laughed together for a couple of hours, and I could tell that that had done my mother quite a lot of good.

Here's what she said to me when I remarked that she sounded great over the phone: "With this disease, some days you die and some days you dance."

Yesterday she danced.

She has a doctor's appointment on Monday. Stay tuned....

- Catherine