Two lessons

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. As often happens on both this and Father’s Day, we were unable to be with our children and grandchildren. It does not bother me because we are blessed to spend so much time with them throughout the year. We did go over to visit Barry’s mother. Although she lives just a few blocks away, we do not get over there as often as we should. I would think about going to visit her now and then on my own, but I cannot actually do that for what may seem a rather odd reason. When I was diagnosed two years ago, Barry and his brother Rich decided it would be best for everyone if their mother be kept in the dark. They did not feel she would handle it well, which would be additional stress none of us needed. I had to trust their judgment on this one and she remains clueless, although I have been surprised that she has not commented on the weight loss. She is almost 93 and each time I do see her she looks more and more frail to me, but she is doing better than we expected her to do mentally. She has a woman who comes in every day to do things for her and take her to medical appointments, and she has fortunately stayed in fairly good health.

Before we visited with her, we went out to buy flowers for our patio. We have flower boxes on the failings that have sat empty for the past few summers, and we felt it was time to put some color there again. Early this morning I planted the four flower boxes, a feeble attempt to create a small piece of Giverny. Neither of us had any idea how many to buy, so as we so often tend to do, we vastly overbought. The good thing is that we have some space in the yard where we can plant the ones I did not use.

By the end of last week the forecasters were predicting beautiful weather for Sunday. The Mets were playing a day game so Barry got us tickets. When we showed our tickets at the gate, I was handed a t-shirt with the Mets logo in pink on the front (and an ad for 1-800 flowers on the back). They had a special program called “Bark in the Park”: people bring their dogs – literally hundreds of people did - and parade them around the field. There was music playing, predictable tunes like “How Much is That Doggie in the Window,” but then they played James Taylor’s version of the Carole King song, “You’re Got a Friend.” I do not know if Carole had a dog in mind when she wrote that one!

Beyond the t-shirts, there was quite a bit of attention given to the fact that it was Mother’s Day. That got me to thinking about how difficult a day it must be for all the women who are not mothers but want to be: women who have not yet found their soul-mate, are facing fertility challenges, or have lost a child. While all of those people have mothers, it would seem difficult to celebrate this day under such circumstances. This is another one of those things I might never have thought about before the recent tragic death of 10-year-old Cooper Stock.

We were sitting in accessible seating because the ball park requires more walking than I can comfortably do, and stairs are a particular challenge. This seating is located in designated “boxes” in the last row of the section that have spaces for a wheelchair next to a standard seat for a companion. No steps are required to get to this seating or, from it, to the bathroom and food concessions. Because it is at the rear of the section, it is shaded by the tier above it. It is actually set up quite well. The last row of the section in front of the accessible row is a few steps down from it. A pop fly pretty much landed at my feet but I could not move quickly enough before a fellow sitting in the section in front of ours scooped up the ball. He was able to do this easily because of the drop from our section to the one he was in. I sure would have loved to give that ball to Joshua! A few minutes after this happened, someone from the park office came over to us and said he heard about what happened and offered me a free drink or ice cream. I do not know who thought to summon this person, perhaps it was one of the other attendants who may have seen what happened. Barry told me he did notice that the fellow who took the ball gave it to a child who appeared to be a relative or a friend.

Although the Mets scored 1 run in the first inning, it was downhill for them after that. It seemed to me that they left a lot of men on base! By the top of the 9^th the score was Phillies 4 vs. Mets 1, and along with many other people we headed for the parking lot. By the time I found the game on the radio in the car, the Mets had scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 9^th! So the game went into extra innings. We arrived home to watch the Mets win 5 to 4 in the bottom of the 11^th inning!

There are two lessons learned from this story:

1. If a ball lands at your feet ACT QUICKLY!

2. It ain’t over ‘til it’s over!

Have a great day!

Love,

Rebecca