Rare Sweet Evenings

Mother's Day - it's got to the the best holiday ever, I know all the mothers reading this agree!  We had a nice picnic dinner at the rehab center with Mom. The patio outside was sunny and the air was the perfect temperature, with a slight breeze that ruffled the napkins but didn't blow the pink flowered paper plates away after all the barbeque and fried okra were supped up.  Rare in Texas, a sweet evening like that with Mom enjoying time outside with her family.

Rarer especially since the treatments Mom has been receiving have fairly wiped out her energy. We were thinking this last round of Avastin (given a week ago Monday) was harder to take than the initial one, because Mom's lethargy has been profound and she's had a tough time completing her therapy without being exhausted. We may have found a new culprit though, contributing to the problem, which was confirmed last night.

Mom's sugar levels are sky high!  Ugh.  Finger pokes are now a mandatory appetizer before every meal...but this form of diabetes is something, thankfully, that's controllable and treatable.  I don't know the details, but we know the sugar levels are attributed to the steroids she's been taking for months now.  The steroids help reduce and maintain reduced swelling in her brain, but the goodness comes with some side effects and whacked out sugars is one of them.  

This afternoon after all therapies were completed, Mom had a nice hour of energy and wanted to go outside.  While she was wheeling herself down the hall, Sara showed up with Caroline, Catherine, and Mary Claire, backpack and lunch box laden, having just been picked up from school.  All of us walked/wheeled together to the front patio of the rehab facility, and sat in the shade chatting about little things, "Do I hear an airplane?" "Well that's a truck on the highway but it sounds as loud as an airplane!"  "Did you get rid of the ducks?" (in Mom and Dad's pool) "Yes, the big ugly blow up swan floating in the water seems to have done the trick."  Light casual conversation, nice and easy.  The girls played games in the yard around the tree, how many skips does it take from here to there, how many pirouettes, how fast can you sprint it?  A friend from church walked up to see her Grandma, it was nice to see her and introduce her to our extended family.  Mom seemed to enjoy the levity, the fresh air, as well as the change of pace and scenery.

And for scenery, let's just say there are some colorful characters at rehab. Accidents and disease surely don't discriminate.  I have no idea why this particularly colorful person was there, but he was at the right place at the right time.  As he walked up with his ratty hair, semi-toothless grin, tattooed arms, and well-worn guitar, my mother smiled up at him, and asked him if he was there to play a song.  

He said yes, sure he was.  And he stopped right there on the patio, strummed some chords, and started to sing in a raspy voice.  A voice well-seasoned with who knows what, experiences I doubt any of us share with him.  He wasn't there to see us, but he took the time out to make my mother happy by sharing a song.  The chorus of the song went something like this:

Like a drunk reaches for his bottle

like a crying baby reaches for his mama

like a tree reaches for the sky

I reach for you

I reach for you

Who was he reaching for?  I don't know.  I know who I was reaching for in that moment.  As tears came down my face, and my mother's eyes were welling up, the singer concluded his song, and he said, "I wrote that song a long time ago. But I wasn't sure until now just who I wrote it for. But I think I must have wrote it for you."  

And we thanked him, I think, at least I hope we did.  It's hard to remember this part, and he walked inside to visit who he had really come to visit and sing to, or with. 

How lucky we were to be sitting on that patio.  It was another rare sweet evening.  Mom's doctors have told us to look for and appreciate each moment together, and tonight was one worth remembering.