Mom Never Gives Up - Part Two

Oh, how times have changed. It’s not getting the call about the kids doing something sneaky anymore. It’s my eighty-seven year-old mother...

My smartphone lights up. It’s my mother’s care facility calling. Each time I get a call from Sunrise Senior Living, I freeze. Is Mom ok?

“Hi, Heather. It’s not an emergency,” Paula, the director of nursing, says immediately.  She’s good. Wastes no time.

I breathe a sigh of relief, resigned now to a new worry - what’s Mom been up to?  With my mother, I never know what to expect.

“Everything is fine,” Paula says,  “but we caught your mother with her walker off-sight following another resident - her friend she calls 'the doctor' -  on his scooter.”

“You mean, they escaped?”

“Well, yes,” she replies. “But, they didn’t get far. One of the CNA’s was making a bed on the second floor and saw them outside the window.  They were heading down 15^th Street toward Santa Monica Boulevard.”

“How’d they get out?”

“Apparently, they slipped out while a delivery of flowers was being made up front, so the alarm bell didn’t ring.”

A picture of my mother comes to mind, slightly stooped, gripping the walker, eyeglasses slipping down her nose revealing steely blue eyes framed in false lashes. Mom's lazy about using her walker. She needs to be helped and prodded just to keep moving forward. She followed her doctor friend down the street on his little red scooter? After they... "slipped out?"

“She’s right here,” Paula says. “I’m in her room with her talking about it and I think your mom understands now that she can’t leave the premises without us knowing.”

“Oh. My. God. I can’t believe her.” I have to stifle a laugh.

Paula apologizes. “We’ve never had an incident like this before.”

“My mother’s got her ways, Paula. I don’t fault you. But, I have to say, I can’t imagine Mom hustling with her walker down the street. She can barely scramble with it to the dining room. Where were they going?”

“Hank’s Liquor Store.”

I roll my eyes. “Let me speak to her.”

“Mom,” I scold. “You were after some wine, weren’t you?”

“No, I needed Advil.”

“Mom, they provide Advil at Sunrise and you need it to be given to you by the nurse.”

I could almost hear the wheels turning in that mind of hers. 

“Mom…?”

“Well, he offered to take me. Just to have it during cocktail hour. He's very together, you know. He said there was a store right at the end of our block.”

"But, Mom, your lack of balance and alcohol is not a good mix."

She gives in with a laugh. “Ok. Ok.  I’m guilty as sin.”

"Mom, you can't do stuff like this. It's not safe."

“I promise I won’t do it, again,” she tells me. “Swear to Buddha.”

"Mom, are you crossing your fingers?" 

"Shit...how'd you know?"