Today mom called me to help her put one of her blinds back up in the window. She was doing her fall cleaning, and one blind was giving her a hard time by repeatedly falling off of the brackets. She also needed someone to put batteries in the two smoke alarms which she had taken out of commission because they kept “tweeting” for a new battery.

I told her that I would be down sometime in the afternoon to help her with those items; all the while hoping that my brother would stop in first and fix all of the issues, so that I could just visit with her. When I got there, my mom was standing in the doorway with a huge smile on her face. She was dripping with sweat and had her hair tucked messily behind her ears, but her smile seemed peaceful and happy.

MOM: I was looking out the window and saw my beautiful car pull up, and I said to myself, “hey, that’s my beautiful car!” 

ME: Yes it is! In all its splendor and glory. Isn’t she pretty. And look at YOU working so hard today!

MOM: Oh yes I have been! Come in and see what I have been doing all day.

Mom had been cleaning everywhere. I could smell the cleaning solution and her furniture was all over the room, so she could get access to the blinds. I remembered back to my childhood when she would clean like this twice a year. I fixed the blind which she had tried to install upside down, put the batteries in the smoke alarms, and told her to take a short break but keep up the good work! She smiled and kissed me good-bye.

Every time I left her house, I had mixed emotions. I was angry because my father died too young and left her, and I was sad for the same reason. I yelled at dad from the comfort of mom’s beautiful car as I drove away from the house she shared with him for over 37 years. Through tears and after a fit of anger directed at my father for dying, I began laughing hysterically as I realized it was fruitless to harass a dead man. I knew this to be true because in my mind’s eye, I could see my father smiling and saying, “it’s all going to be okay; I promise.”