Post by MIRIAM JACOB on Jan 11, 2008 0:40:06 GMT -5
The Sunday Basket
The basket changed hands...
We’re not talking any old ordinary basket here. We’re talking the Sunday Basket.
Years ago, I had given it to my mom as a Christmas present. The basket contains a platform to store a pie or various other items beneath, while having lots of room for other stuff. It proves invaluable for toting food back and forth on Sundays when my mom and I get together.
The basket changed hands on Mother’s Day.
I felt both sad and elated. Sad that my mother is slowing down, and that even after her knee heals, she probably won’t be able to do as much for herself as she once could. But I also felt elated, because for the first time since my accident 18 years ago, I would be the one to fix Sunday dinner for her instead of vice versa. By “fix,” I mean delegate and supervise. That’s what I “do.”
For three months worth of Sunday’s we had dined at my house. In my bedroom, to be exact -- where I was doing time in bed to heal a pressure sore. Fortunately, my problem had cleared up. This time, instead of doing Sunday at my place, I enlisted the aide of two cousins who live about an hour away, plus two of my attendants.
My cousins came over, helped load up the basket with the dinner that one of my attendants had shopped for and another had prepared. The three of us drove over to my mother’s house. She had just been sprung from the hospital the day before. Joint replacement surgery on her left knee had knocked a little of the get-up-and-go out of this 83 year-old dynamo whose social life still runs circles around mine.
It felt nice to be in the position of “doing” instead of “being done for,” even if it did take four able-bodied people to help me pull off this simple act. There are many things this quadriplegic can still do -- writing, drawing and tandem skydiving to name a few -- but shopping, cooking and driving have not yet made it to my I-Did-It! list.
Though I feel guilty because I can’t do more, I am grateful that God provided my mother with so many caring neighbors. Frequently, they drop in bearing gifts of homemade cookies or homegrown produce. One of her next-door neighbors even offered to plant her tomatoes this year. When my mom said that she wasn’t up to having her garden because she couldn’t easily water it, this sweet soul said she would do that too! By that
afternoon the plants were in the ground.
My mom’s neighbor on the other side -- a friend for over 30 years -- is a true lifeline. She gets her groceries and helps her morning and night with the “ted hose” she must wear for three weeks to help prevent blood clots. Her first night home, my mom spent two grueling hours getting these stockings off by herself. When she casually mentioned this to Maxine the next day, the response was, “You didn’t call me?!”
Another thoughtful neighbor offered to change my mom’s sheets since the provision of home health care for people leaving the hospital seems to be a thing of the past. This dear friend even dashed back to transfer the sheets to the dryer, and again to fold and put them away.
My mother and my cousins and I had a delightful Mother’s Day.
To complete the role reversal, I left all the yummy leftovers for my mom and took the Sunday Basket with me. Besides acting as my chauffeur that afternoon, my cousins ran errands for my mom, served dinner, did the dishes, plus a myriad of other tasks.
Me? I delegated and supervised. That’s what I do.
(C) Vickie Baker
“And Boaz answered and said to her,
'It has fully been revealed to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband: and how you have left your father and your mother, and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before.”
- (Ruth 2:11)
The basket changed hands...
We’re not talking any old ordinary basket here. We’re talking the Sunday Basket.
Years ago, I had given it to my mom as a Christmas present. The basket contains a platform to store a pie or various other items beneath, while having lots of room for other stuff. It proves invaluable for toting food back and forth on Sundays when my mom and I get together.
The basket changed hands on Mother’s Day.
I felt both sad and elated. Sad that my mother is slowing down, and that even after her knee heals, she probably won’t be able to do as much for herself as she once could. But I also felt elated, because for the first time since my accident 18 years ago, I would be the one to fix Sunday dinner for her instead of vice versa. By “fix,” I mean delegate and supervise. That’s what I “do.”
For three months worth of Sunday’s we had dined at my house. In my bedroom, to be exact -- where I was doing time in bed to heal a pressure sore. Fortunately, my problem had cleared up. This time, instead of doing Sunday at my place, I enlisted the aide of two cousins who live about an hour away, plus two of my attendants.
My cousins came over, helped load up the basket with the dinner that one of my attendants had shopped for and another had prepared. The three of us drove over to my mother’s house. She had just been sprung from the hospital the day before. Joint replacement surgery on her left knee had knocked a little of the get-up-and-go out of this 83 year-old dynamo whose social life still runs circles around mine.
It felt nice to be in the position of “doing” instead of “being done for,” even if it did take four able-bodied people to help me pull off this simple act. There are many things this quadriplegic can still do -- writing, drawing and tandem skydiving to name a few -- but shopping, cooking and driving have not yet made it to my I-Did-It! list.
Though I feel guilty because I can’t do more, I am grateful that God provided my mother with so many caring neighbors. Frequently, they drop in bearing gifts of homemade cookies or homegrown produce. One of her next-door neighbors even offered to plant her tomatoes this year. When my mom said that she wasn’t up to having her garden because she couldn’t easily water it, this sweet soul said she would do that too! By that
afternoon the plants were in the ground.
My mom’s neighbor on the other side -- a friend for over 30 years -- is a true lifeline. She gets her groceries and helps her morning and night with the “ted hose” she must wear for three weeks to help prevent blood clots. Her first night home, my mom spent two grueling hours getting these stockings off by herself. When she casually mentioned this to Maxine the next day, the response was, “You didn’t call me?!”
Another thoughtful neighbor offered to change my mom’s sheets since the provision of home health care for people leaving the hospital seems to be a thing of the past. This dear friend even dashed back to transfer the sheets to the dryer, and again to fold and put them away.
My mother and my cousins and I had a delightful Mother’s Day.
To complete the role reversal, I left all the yummy leftovers for my mom and took the Sunday Basket with me. Besides acting as my chauffeur that afternoon, my cousins ran errands for my mom, served dinner, did the dishes, plus a myriad of other tasks.
Me? I delegated and supervised. That’s what I do.
(C) Vickie Baker
“And Boaz answered and said to her,
'It has fully been revealed to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband: and how you have left your father and your mother, and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before.”
- (Ruth 2:11)