Lifting Us Up

“I’m useless!” Mom cried in frustration.

The ones we care for often feel useless as age or disease steals away their strength and stamina. It can be difficult to keep their spirits up, especially if they are homebound.

“What if you do something nice for somebody else?” I asked.

“What could I possibly do?” she said a little more harshly than I knew she meant.

“You could call someone. You could invite a friend over and have dinner brought in. You want to send surprise flowers to someone? What about your cards? Are you still sending them?”

Mom loved sending cheery notes to people who needed a lift. She made sure I sent a thank-you card for every gift I got. Now, I make the cards I send. As Mom became homebound, I created doubles of my cards, adding the duplicates to Mom’s stash.

As her hands became more and more crippled by Parkinson’s, her handwriting diminished to an unreadable scrawl. So I printed various messages for the insides of the cards, applying double-stick tape to the back of each. Mom could pick the appropriate one, peel off the backing and put the message inside.

Mom wiped the tears from her face. “Let’s send flowers! Then, you can write a few notes for me,” she said. I saw a smile I had not seen in a long time.