My Mama is sassy, feisty, smart, wise,
intuitive, snarky, inappropriate, fiercely independent, deeply
spiritual and possibly the funniest person I know.
Her medical history looks like a train
wreck. She has enough severe health issues to justify that
trip to Heaven that she talks about so often. Yet, in spite of
herself, she is still here.
And as long as she is still here, I
want her to be healthy and strong. I want her to
listen to me and do what I encourage her to do. The rest of my
elderly patients mind me. But not Mom.
Basically, my Mom lives like an unsupervised third grader. She wishes I would just be quiet and let her eat
potato chips and popsicles at 1:00 a.m.
Yep. It's all fun and games... until I get a
phone call from LifeLine at 3:00 a.m., telling me my Mom has fallen.
And can't get up.
***
We sweetly but forcefully checked her into inpatient rehab for twenty days, for her to regain her strength.
She did not want to go.
She is not happy to be there.
Yet, in spite of herself, she is
getting stronger.
Her constant mantra is: "If I knew I
was gonna live this long, I would've taken better care of myself.”
She lovingly blames me – and God – for not
allowing her to die. She believes my prayers to keep her with me
have canceled out her prayers to leave this life before her independence leaves her.
I told her I only pray for “God's Will”.
But that's not entirely the truth.
I've actually caught myself editing prayers for my Mama. You know, real quick-like before God could
catch me. One night I prayed, “Jesus, please, take away her
pain...” and little alarms started going off in my head. I thought to myself, "Uh oh... what if He takes away her pain by taking her to Heaven?!?!"
I immediately revised my prayer to say,
“Jesus, please give those good doctors the ability to ease Mom's pain. And thank you for letting me keep her.”
I know I'm not fooling Jesus.
Heck, I'm not
even fooling myself.
Much as I wish it to be so, I
understand my Mama will not be here with me, forever. And I can't
even write that sentence without tearing up.
***
"I need you to know
your limitations, Mom.” I tell her earnestly as she holds court from the hospital bed, picking at her breakfast tray and sipping hot tea.
“You know what I need?”
she says right back to me. “I need my hot tea to stay
hot and my cold tea to stay cold. Is that too much to ask? Okay,
maybe it is... when you think about all the people out there who need
body parts and stuff.”
“Ha. Ha. Funny Mom. At least
promise me you'll wear your oxygen all the time, okay?”
She flashed a wicked smile and said,
“I'm just getting back at you for the time you held your breath
until you passed out and peed all over yourself.”
“Really, Mom...? Really? I was only two years old.”
“You were mad at me for taking away
your pacifier.”
“Well, you should have let me keep it.
You obviously caused me to develop an oral fixation which I learned
to satisfy with copious amounts of food and chocolate. Daddy always
let me have my pacifier.”
“That's the truth. Your Daddy
would've given you LDS if you wanted it.”
“You mean LSD? My Daddy would've
given me hallucinogenic drugs...?”
And so it goes...
***
Dickie was at the hospital Friday, doing his pre-op stuff for his upcoming knee scope. The knee
scope he must have to repair the meniscus that he tore after he broke
his toe while he was still in a sling from his shoulder surgery
following the procedures to repair his detached retinas (yes, BOTH retinas).
He had the nerve to send me a text,
asking if I would agree to help him with his physical therapy. Here's
a little snapshot of our conversation:
I just want him to be healthy and strong. I want him to listen to me and do what I advise him to do. The rest of my patients mind me. But not the Dickman.
Every time I see him limping through
the door with a brace or a missing body part, I get mad all over
again.
I was venting to him about this very issue last night, when he busted out laughing, turned to me and said:
“Did I ever tell you about the time I
arm-wrestled Moose Morowski?"
***
It was the fall of 1974. The Mighty
Fighting Borger Bulldogs had soundly whooped up on the Amarillo High
School Sandies. Dickie and his football buds were feeling
invincible, as only 17 and 18 year old boys (and my 78 year old Mama)
can feel.
They walked into the Pizza Hut, ready
to rumble. Dickie's friend Lanny was already there, smoking a
cigarette out of his nostril. (Apparently, Lanny had been there long
enough to single-handedly finish off a pitcher of beer.)
The boys barely had time to sit down and place their order when three of the burliest, meanest looking men
they had ever seen burst through the doors...
 |
| DICK MURDOCH |
 |
| MOOSE MOROWSKI |
 |
| RAPID RICKY ROMERO |
Local stars of Big Time Wrestling who
just happened to be in Borger for a death match at the
Aluminum Dome.
Drunken Lanny wasted no time in going
over to introduce himself.
Dickie, keeping a watchful eye on his
goofy friend, looked up to find Lanny pointing at him while talking
to the biggest and ugliest of all the wrestlers. The wrestler turned
to Dickie with a glare. The Dickman, in all his 175 pound glory,
tipped a hand to the wrestler ala Robert Redford.
Lanny came dancing back to the table, cigarette hanging from his nose, and said: “Hey! Moose thinks
he can beat you at arm wrestling!!!”
Dickie looked increduously at his
drunken friend. “I know he can.”
“No, really! You gotta wrestle the
Moose!”
Suddenly, all of Dickie's so-called
friends and teammates picked up the Call to Arms. (See what I did
there?)
They climbed atop their chairs and
tables and began chanting, “Go, Buck Joe! Go, Buck Joe!”
The next thing Dickie knew, he was
sitting across the table from MOOSE MOROWSKI. In the oversized flesh.
What else could he do?
The Dickman rolled up his sleeves, looked
Moose right in his lazy eye, and prepared to battle.
SLAM!!!! It was over before it started.
It took a moment for Dickie to realize his right shoulder was
screaming with pain.
Not one to back down, Dickie smiled at
Moose and said, “Uh.... I forgot to tell you that I am
left-handed. Let's try that again, Big Boy.”
Moose smiled a toothless, mirthless
smile and put his left elbow on the table.
SLAM!!! Dickie's left shoulder begin throbbing to match his right.
Moose gave Dickie a sympathetic look and said,
“Sorry, man. I never know about you little guys. Some are wiry
enough to give me a good fight and some are like you... just stupid.”
***
I would never call them stupid.
But clearly, I'm
surrounded by people who refuse to accept their limitations...
