The Fall

 

My father had been angry with me when I left the farm the last time. 

I had just extracted a promise that he would use his chair lift to get to his bedroom, his office, all the rooms that are inconveniently located on the second floor of his beloved farmhouse. The chair lift was installed after a hip injury a year ago, and in that year he had used it exactly twice--both times to move baskets of laundry to the second floor.

But aging, even for someone who is as amazing as my 96-year-old father, is inescapable. 

I had spent a few days with Dad, and saw that his navigation of the stairs was becoming shaky. I had watched him pause on every step to grope for the next. And I knew his cardiologist had told him he should be using that chair lift. 

"Dad, I'm going to ask you to do something hard. I want you to promise me that you'll use the chair lift," I said.

It really wasn't fair to do this. I knew Dad couldn't refuse direct requests from any of his five children, so we don't often present ultimatums. This was a promise, not a loose agreement that could be circumvented by "I'm sure she didn't mean ALL the time," or "She would want me to keep up my leg strength." But I pinned the promise down: The chair lift every single time up or down the stairs, with an extra lap at the wellness center to keep up the leg strength.

We had already seen the worst that can happen in a fall--fourteen years ago my mother fell just three steps down into the garage, but she suffered a traumatic head injury and died the next day. 

So Dad promised, but he wasn't happy. When I hugged him good-bye as I left for home later that day I told him how sorry I was that he didn't want to do this, but that I loved him. He sighed and hugged me tighter. 

"I love you, too," he said. "I'll get over it." 

I thought of that moment when the text came from my brother last Tuesday. Dad had fallen in the garage and they were on their way to the emergency room. A few hours later we knew he had broken six ribs in his back, near his spine. 

As I made the cross-state drive toward the hospital I was struck by how the landscape had changed in just the few weeks since I had last been there. Late August was still full summer, bright and glaring and hot. But now the sun is lower and fields and trees have taken on the bronzes and muted greens of fall. Road shoulders and ditches are riots of wild sunflowers, final splashes of color that are the annual gaudy announcement of imminent winter.

One week after his fall, Dad is doing shockingly well. His hospital status has moved to swing bed rather than acute care, and he surprised his physical therapist by acing several proficiency tests. He's in pain during transition (up and down from chairs, coughing) but otherwise comfortable. And he was delighted to have me with him, and had put his pique about the chair lift behind. 

Now we're talking about what kind of accommodations need to be made to be able for him to stay at home rather than in an assisted living setting. We want him to be happy and self-directed, but we want him to be safe as well.

We are in a different season.

Who? Me?

 

I have spelled my name out approximately eight gazillion ninety-eleven tantillion times in my life. 

That is probably a conservative estimate, especially for someone whose name is only about an eighth of an inch off the center line of middle-of-the-road, but believe me when I say that pretty much no one can reliably spell it correctly without my help. My first name is actually quite common but its spelling is one of two accepted variants, and if I'm being perfectly honest, probably the less common variant. I grew up with a surname with one tricky option, and married into a surname that I've seen misspelled at least a half dozen different ways. It's as if my name were Betty Davies (it's not). That's not what you think of when you hear the name spoken.

That's why I was just a tad surprised when I opened the email from the Hampton Inn Meridian at 11 p.m. Saturday night. 

"See you soon, Betty Davies!" it gushed. "Your reservation for Mar-11-2023 has been confirmed!" 

Hey! Good for them! They spelled my name exactly right!  But if you check your calendar you'll see that last Saturday was March 11, and at 11 p.m. I was in my nightgown multiple states away from Meridian, Mississippi. Also, the reservation was for two adults and two children and unless we've entered the multiple-universe world of Oscar-winning movies there was no way Husband and I would be multiple states away from the office with corporate tax deadline only four days in the future. Also, our children have pretty much passed the days of sharing hotel rooms with their parents. 

So Husband, who was (shockingly) working on a tax return in the next room, heard my shriek:

"Oh, no! My credit card has been hacked!" 

One of the best things about being married to a CPA is that he's dealt with a lot of Stuff when it comes to all things financial, so he checked my credit card online while I fretted and paced. No charges had shown up, so he called the card company to make sure.

"If the charge hasn't shown up, this is probably a phishing scam," the nice customer service rep reassured us. "Don't click on any links." 

Even though I had passed that exceedingly low test of tech savviness (no link clicking for me), I wasn't reassured.

So Husband put his phone on speaker and called the hotel number.

"Hampton Inn Meridian! How may I help you?' Husband explained to the nice lady who answered the phone that I had received a reservation confirmation, and gave her the confirmation number.

"Yes, we have that reservation, and it looks like...you're already checked in?"

That's when I shrieked the second time. 

"NO! I'm not checked in! That's me, and I'm in Kansas, and I'm not in a hotel in Mississippi!" 

The poor clerk was non-plussed. 

"But you used your credit card and checked in. And the room is paid for. And you're here." 

Husband made shushing gestures at me and began asking questions she couldn't answer. What was the home address of the people in the room? What was the credit card number?

Finally she told us that the credit card was a MasterCard, and the last four digits were XXXX, which isn't a card owned by any of us folks in the House on the Corner.

"Well," she speculated, "maybe there's just someone else out there named Betty Davies." 

I corrected her firmly.

"There's only one MomQueenBee, and that Bee is in Kansas in her nightgown at this very moment."

Bless her, the clerk told us she'd check into the issue and call us back.

An hour later she called back with the astounding news that there is someone else out there named Betty Davies, with the exact same tricky spelling variations of my first and last names. 

"I checked her ID," she told Husband, "and it definitely matches the credit card."

Well, I'll be darned. The next morning Husband handed me a stack of papers printed out from one of those internet people searchers. 

Not only does one Betty Davies live in the House on the Corner (me), another Betty Davies lives in New York, and another Betty Davies lives in Georgia, and another Betty Davies lives in Indiana, and another Betty Davies lives in New Jersey. The Betty Davies who lives in the House on the Corner (me) actually has two nearly-identical listings in this report. And the more-common spelling of the first name plus the correct spelling of the surname show up in Florida, Wisconsin, Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, South Carolina, and three places in New York.

While I was deeply relieved that my credit card was secure, at least for the moment, there was the slightest twinge of disappointment at how many other MomQueenBees are scattered across the country. I guess Margaret Mead was right: 

I am absolutely unique, just like everybody else.

The Top Half of the Photo

 

So much ketchup in my refrigerator

This post is a follow-up to one I wrote almost two weeks ago, in which I promised the rest of the story in a post "tomorrow." HAHAHA! Isn't it nice to know that in this world of constantly shifting expectations and mores, some things never change? In my defense, time is rushing so much faster as I age that I'm not sure "two weeks" and "tomorrow" aren't the same thing.

Anyway, in my last post I bemoaned (albeit bravely, don't you think?) the way our much-anticipated gathering of all of the chickadees back into the House on the Corner turned out to have some empty chairs. That part of the celebration was completely stink-o.

But go back and look at the last post and move your focus to the top half. That's the part that symbolizes how much fun we had in spite of the gaping gap left by the Covid exposure of Boy#1, Lovely Girl#1, and Baby Wonderful#1. (Also, Husband would like me to correct the last post's identification of the flu-ridden and therefore late-to-the-party parties as Boy#4 and his Dear One rather than the Boy#2 clan. This continues a 35-year-old tradition of my calling the Boys by the wrong names. So sorry!)

Anyway, I had the most amazing realization midway through our holiday week: It turns out that there comes a time in your children's lives when you don't have to entertain them. They entertain you. 

This isn't only because the crew now includes an adorable toddler who is beginning to talk and calls me Meemaw and adores Beebaw. Husband and I should have paid closer attention when friends told us we aren't in charge of choosing grandparent names, that the budding babbler would do that. Certainly I wouldn't have chosen Meemaw, which brings up mental images of a snaggle-toothed hillbilly in a rocking chair. Hearing the original "Grandma" and "Grandpa" emerge in translation from this wee one's mouth, though, is absolutely precious and endlessly endearing.

Even after the wee one had gone to bed, the entertainment didn't stop. The three Boys and their beauties organized activities to keep us together, even though a wonky hip was hobbling me. One night, for example, we spent hours doing taste tests. 

Friends, I never would have imagined how much fun this would be--like wine tastings for tee-totaling parents, without the hangovers. For two hours we dipped mini-hash browns into different brands of catsup, licked peanut butters off spoons, sipped orange juice (from concentrate and not from concentrate), and nibbled onion-and-sour-cream potato chips.

We are a family of, shall we say, strong opinions. We are brand loyal, and know deep down that our preferences are undoubtedly correct. But what do you know? If we don't have the brand names in front of us, it's a lot harder to be persnickety. After years of arguing for their personally preferred peanut butters, Boy#4 and his Dear One discovered they had top-rated the other one's brands. The moment was fraught.

Noooooo!

We disagreed on much. Some of us have palates that preferred a vinegary ketchup; others preferred it sweet. Two of us are rabid fans of the store-brand peanut butter. But we also agreed on much. "Natural" peanut butter is a crime against sandwiches. Ruffles are the finest style of potato chips and Pringles are...not. Three containers of ketchup earned their way into the refrigerator but the Great Value did not. 

And when it was over the next generation cleaned up the dozens of little plates and put the tasting spoons in the dishwasher, and generally got the kitchen ready for the next meal. Which they would cook, and that right there is another level of wonderful. 

We also spent one evening in a rousing session of Monikers, which was the perfect intergenerational game, except for the answers that made Meemaw blush just a little. 

Being the Old Folks is not always ideal. I very much regretted that the cursed wonky hip kept me from playing on the floor or taking walks with the wee one. And the one meal I did cook was not so good, with the only reliable specialty I claim (dinner rolls) falling victim to expired yeast. I would have checked that when I was younger.

But, oh, young parents, just wait. There will come a day when you are not the one responsible for the logistics or the food or the entertainment. Then you will sit back and look at your children having fun without your orchestration, and it will be the best. 

There's no comparison..

Counting the Blessings; Rolling With the Rest

 

A scroll-down representation

Today's beauty shot is the most recent one on my camera roll, and it makes me laugh ruefully. In some ways it's a scroll-down representation of the Christmas goings-on in the House on the Corner. 

As you look at it, hold your hand up to your eyes so that your fingers only reveal the serene, well-ordered reading nook that is one of my favorite parts of our newly-remodeled kitchen (the process of which I completely neglected to blog, but the results of which I love soooooo much). The nook is the ideal place to snuggle up with an afghan and a book, and to glance up often at the pictures of loved ones I've packed onto the south wall. 

Now move your hand up so that the mission chair and reading lamp are covered and all you see are bags and bags of trash, half-filled cartons of pop, a deflated air mattress, and a roaster still greasy with the remains of our holiday ham dinner. 

That was Christmas around these parts. It was a combination of perfection and wow-that-stinks. Here's where I must once more tell you young moms to hang in there. A quarter century ago I would have let the wow-that-stinks parts completely erase the good moments. It was PERFECTION OR BUST! for me, and I'm here to tell you that Christmas perfection is a myth. 

So I'll tell you the wow-that-stinks parts before anything else, because these were not inconsequential. 

When the Boys began establishing homes of their own we began sharing holidays with the families that were now theirs by marriage. Every other non-pandemic year the Boys and families are here for Christmas; every other year they're here for Thanksgiving. This was our Thanksgiving year so Husband and I spent Dec. 25 by ourselves, watching movies and eating Chinese food. The festivities would really begin Dec. 27, when the ENTIRE CLAN would begin to pile in! I restrained myself from adding an additional dozen exclamation points to that last sentence, but just know that the last time we all were gathered in the old crappy kitchen it was to announce that Baby Wonderful #2 was on his way. Baby Wonderful #2 now is within spittin' distance of turning two years old, so you can do the math. And if it wasn't exciting enough to have all the Boys home, we would also have four girls, not even counting me, for the very first time ever! 

It was so much wonderful I couldn't bear it. 

If you look back to the middle of that last paragraph, though, you will begin to see a tiny little dark cloud developing on the horizon. Are you noticing that before they were to come to their mama and daddy's house, our kids were spend time with the extended clans of their families-in-law? Unfortunately, two of those tiny little dark clouds blossomed into the cumulonimbus variety.

Boy#1, Lovely Girl #1, and Baby Wonderful #1, spent Christmas Day sitting next to a relative with a cough, and sure enough, that relative spent Boxing Day morning swabbing her nose and watching two lines appear on the rapid Covid test. Boy#2 and his Dear One spent Christmas Day with a relative who had tested positive for flu, and sure enough, soon Two was coughing up a lung and shivering with chills. There was no possibility those in Covid quarantine would be able to attend, and the flu guy would need quick bounce-back.

It was beyond disappointing. This was going to be the first time Baby Wonderful cousins were to meet, and they're now old enough to interact. It was going to be a return to normalcy, a reward for the years we've endured missed holidays and postponed celebrations. 

But while I don't want to minimize the wow-that-stinks, and I do not at all minimize the hurt that scuttled holiday plans caused this year, for me (and I am only speaking for myself) age and the pandemic have softened my need for perfection. Half a loaf is better than none, after so many years of no loaf at all. In our case we got three-quarters of a loaf: The flu guy did bounce, and was here with his Dear One for the end of the week. The Covid-exposed sidestepped the infection at home.

There were many, many moments during the past week when I found my eyes unexpectedly filling with tears of gratitude. Sitting in the New Year's Day church service in a a pew completely filled with my family. "Playing" the piano with a toddler who giggled and imitated me. Opening gifts that were so heartfelt and thoughtful. Being with grown-up children, who have chosen to love each other. 

We talked and talked and laughed and laughed, and when we waved goodbye through the fog Tuesday morning we knew again how blessed we were, even though there hadn't been a moment when the underlying "If only..." wasn't being felt.

Tomorrow, if I don't get too lazy, I'll talk about the top half of the picture. That's the one that went mostly to plan, and was everything I had hoped it would be. 

Well, except for the holiday dinner rolls, which I made using yeast which I apparently bought before the pandemic. They did not rise at. all. and wow, that stunk. But everything else? 

Perfection.

This Is Not a Political Post

I had hoped to write this post yesterday, but yesterday I was a useless bag of bones. As I had suspected, I am no longer able to work a 14-hour day then bounce back with cheerful energy the following day. 

Tuesday I did something I've wanted to do since the first time I cast a vote: I donned a pin identifying me as an official poll worker and spent the day helping voters carry out their democratic duties. And even though some of my candidates won and some did not win, I left the polling place more hopeful about the future of our democracy than I have been for some time. 

If you don't want to read through a whole slather of words (and just who has been slathering you with words while I've been on break?) here's the bottom line: 

This election crew in Small Town was absolutely dedicated to making sure every single person who showed up had a chance to vote, and that every legitimate vote was counted correctly, and that every vote count was reported scrupulously. 

And just as importantly, of the 450-plus voters for whom I checked credentials, there were exactly two persons who made a single partisan comment, and those two comments were non-threatening and non-specific. 

Friends, this was not at all what I expected. I read the news, listen to radio reports frequently, and occasionally watch commentators on television through splayed fingers. I saw the balaclava-masked armed "observers" looming over the ballot boxes in Arizona. I had been horrified by the traction gained by the Big Lie concerning the 2020 election. What was the truth?

So it was an easy decision when I was contacted about being a poll worker. My flexible, mostly-retired schedule can now afford a day off so I went through pre-election training. There I asked an innocent question: Should I bring my knitting for the lulls during the day? I remembered when my mother was a poll worker in the rural township where I grew up, which had a total of (if I'm remembering correctly) 27 registered voters. She did most of her Christmas knitting on election day. The burst of laughter let me know that this isn't the case in Small Town. 

I showed up at our 6:00 a.m. report time packing my lunch, snacks, and a day's worth of coffee. By then the senior members of the election team had set up the voting stations, but I opened the first sealed bags of ballots to get them ready for early voters. Then I was assigned to my spot as a Poll Pad judge, got a quick tutorial on the iPad-based ID verification system, and we were off and running. 

"Every voter who comes in and wants to vote will vote," we were told. If there's a problem with the registration, such a name change from the driver's license to the voter registration because of marriage, or someone is voting in the wrong location, the voter would need to fill out a provisional ballot to be counted separately. This process has the side advantage of cleaning up voter rolls--a change of address for the next election is filled out on the spot. 

Every single voter had to be identified with photo ID, and every single voter had to match name and address to the registration rolls before being given a ballot and casting a vote. 

When the polls opened at 7 a.m. voters came in like the tide, snaking through the crowd control stanchions like cranky travelers working their way to the ticket counter. The room was packed. But by 7:27 a.m. (I checked my watch) every one of those persons had been verified and moved on to voting. For the rest of the day, although traffic was steady, we never had more than a dozen or so persons in line and almost everyone moved immediately to a verification clerk. Not one person I verified was peevish or nasty. 

By the time I left the polling place at 8 p.m. I was ready to be done, but I also had a new perspective on our elections. Here are my take-aways from a day on the election frontlines:

1. People are interesting, and a driver's license is a great ice-breaker. I complimented one man's flowing beard and handlebar mustache and he pulled out his business card--as Santa Claus! Santa votes in Small Town!

2. Voters want their votes to count. Provisional ballots take slightly longer than regular ballots, but I didn't see anyone walk away from the process. (I don't guarantee this across the whole election, only what was observable from my piece of the process, but I'm fairly confident this statement holds.)

3. Election workers at our polling place are top-notch. Every vote was crucial to us, and we all wanted to be impartial irrespective of our personal views.  

4. Democracy is important, and we may yet be able to save it.

Also, I am now old and creaky and my wonky hip and knees do not like long days. But I'll be back for the next election if I'm invited. This is important work, and I want to be part of it.

Be Patient With Me--I'm a Toddler

Happy birthday to this cutie who made me a mother!

The screensaver on my computer plays a never-ending stream of old pictures from the folders I have amassed over the years. Frankly, this is one of my favorite features of the digital age because I frequently catch a glimpse of a shot I might not have otherwise remembered.

This morning for example, I saw the face of a perfectly contented one-year-old Boy#1, who had just finished a meal of spaghetti. He is happy, the bowl is empty, and there is complete oblivious peace regarding the spaghetti sauce that coats his highchair, face, bib, arms, and the general three-states area.

So how are things going now that I'm two weeks and three days into having a broken wing? Well, pretty much like Boy#1 in this picture. I'm mostly content, well fed, and learning new things every day.

And, holy cow, am I messy.

Much of the messiness, to be sure, is inside my head. The Puritan work ethic that is especially strong in Kansans is leading to much guilt about what I cannot do. What I cannot do is what formerly filled the majority of my time.

I cannot cook. I cannot clean. I cannot type. I cannot knit. I cannot play the piano. (And we will not even mention the personal hygiene things that are difficult but not impossible to do one-handed, including showering, combing my hair, moisturizing my “good” arm, etc.)

Every single thing I do, including the things that I used to do without even thinking about them, takes many multiples of the amount of time it normally take. I'm looking at you, toothbrushing.

What I can do, I am finding, is figure out how to do the things that have to be done and quit doing everything else.

This post, for example, is being composed using voice-to-text technology. I'm speaking thoughts into my computer's microphone and it is more-or-less accurately transcribing them into a Word document that I will copy and paste into the blog. I do not like doing it this way. I've long thought that my fingers did most of the thinking for me when I typed, and now I know that is actually the case. But I'm grateful that this technology exists and I'm building new synapses as I learn how to use it.

I'm getting better at using eating utensils in my left hand. I believe I no longer look like a deranged toddler shoveling half my food into my mouth while the other half drops in my lap. But I have a great admiration for those toddlers who are figuring out how to use spoons and forks without having a real appreciation for why this is better than using their hands. (Is it? Is it, really?)

I am discovering the best wardrobe options for a one-handed person. This includes a total lack of fasteners--no buttons, no hooks and eyes, nothing to tie or buckle. Over-the-head T-shirts and elastic-waisted skirts are my friends. And why skirts, you might ask? Because in the complicated world of dressing and toileting, anything that doesn't need to be pulled up with two hands is a plus.

Pillows are essential. I sleep surrounded by fluffiness that can prop up the cast in the most comfy position. That cast by the way, cannot possibly weigh more than a pound or two but feels as if I'm hoisting a barbell at all times. A sling is helpful but mostly that just transfers the weight to a neck that is already achey.

I'll be honest, though: The most crucial component in this healing process is a husband with a servant heart.

Husband does not cook. At all. But since I made my way head-first into the iris bed, he has done the shopping, prepared the meals, set the table, cut up my food, and cleaned up afterwards.

And have I mentioned that we're doing this in the middle of a kitchen remodel? All kitchen duties are undertaken in the most primitive of conditions. I kept him company one night as he was washing the dishes on the deck, having filled the dishpan in the bathtub.

“It's like camping, isn't it?” I asked him.

“Yes, but with Wi-Fi and air conditioning,” he replied. “It's not so bad.”

I decided that for the next month or so that's going to be my mantra. This isn't my usual life, with its activities and responsibilities. But it could have been so much worse and I have Husband pampering me at every turn, good books, and Acorn streaming on the TV.

I may have spaghetti all over my face but it's not so bad.

He's a keeper.

Not the Memorial Day Memory I Expected

 

Woohoo! Class of '72!

I already was planning to write a blog post about the Memorial Day weekend. Truly! I knew there would be a ton of things to discuss and it's been months since I checked in.

It was, after all, my 50th year class reunion. (How? Just how?) I had waited 50 year to be in the class that sits smack-dab in the middle of the main intersection of Tiny Hometown while the firetrucks and decked-out horses and antique cars drive by for the honor class's approval. 

Somehow I'd become part of the organizing committee for this grand event and after looking at old yearbooks and scanning pictures  and compiling lists, I'd gotten excited about seeing the Class of '72 after a half century. (And I repeat, how did that happen?) 

And it was also the first time since before the pandemic that all of the Boys who live within driving distance of where I grew up would be back on The Farm. Even though we'd be sad to be missing the #Two family, I couldn't wait. The stories I'd be able to tell about Baby Wonderful #1 meeting the feral sheep!

I got within half an hour of living that imagined post. That was when, on Saturday morning, my 95-year-old-father came in the back door with his hand dripping blood. He had fallen in the basement and the resulting skin tear was more than dripping--blood thinners and tissue-paper-thin elderly blood are a tricky combination. While Dad's wife applied pressure I stepped out on the deck to try to get cell phone reception, something the pioneers forgot to include when they were building the limestone house 150 years ago.

I started a text to my Youngest Brother, who lives just a couple hundred yards down the road from Dad and would know how to proceed. He's a farmer and a volunteer firefighter and what he doesn't know about emergencies probably isn't worth knowing. That's what I was thinking, anyway, as I was walking across the deck looking for those elusive bars and stepped off the edge, swan-diving face-first into my mother's iris bed.

It is a most disconcerting feeling, and one that provokes an amazing array of reactions during the literal split second between the right foot missing the deck edge and the right hand/arm/shoulder/sternum/lower extremities hitting the ground. I mean, the drop is two feet. How was I able to do so much internal processing in this amount of time?

"WHAAAAT?" I thought.

 "Oh, crap," I thought.

"That was stupid," I thought.

"This is going to hurt," I thought.

And then I hit the ground and it did hurt. A lot. 

I allowed myself a few seconds to relax and reflect there in the irises. Was I alive? Yes. What hurt the most? Definitely the sternum to shoulder route, where a Game of Thrones  assassin was stabbing his war sword straight through from front to back. I started to lift my right arm to check for blood, and what do you know! There was something more disconcerting than pain, and that was the clearly discernible grating noise coming from my forearm.

At that moment, like a knight in shining armor, Youngest Brother appeared through the iris leaves in my peripheral vision. He was (and I'm not kidding) carrying a big pan of biscuits and gravy and for a second episode of split-second multiple thoughts, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.  I mean, can you think of a better way  for St. Peter to welcome you in? But no, YB was just bringing breakfast for the gang and he set the pans on the deck before dashing over to assess the situation.

Within moments he was doing triage. Boy#4 had arrived on the scene and (still not kidding) THOUGHT I WAS DOING SOME GARDENING. (Later Four admitted that he doesn't know of many kinds of gardening that are done face-down and crumpled on the ground with skirts barely providing dignity.) Youngest Brother dashed inside for a magazine (without staples) that he rolled up and taped to my arm, and the improvised splint made life worth living again. He and Husband carefully rolled me to a sitting position, then lifted me to my feet and got me into the front seat of the car. Dad was bundled into the backseat, and 10 miles later we were in adjoining rooms of Tiny Hometown's excellent emergency room.

There it was confirmed that my right arm was indeed broken, but I had managed a nice clean break. The assassin's war sword was diagnosed as stretched and abused muscles/tendons/whatever and would heal without intervention. Dad got a few squirts of Super Glue For Skin and made it to the parade in time to be honored with the rest of the veterans.

I, sadly, did not make it to the parade but dropped into one of the day's later events where I discovered the rumor was that I had broken my nose. 

Later, as reunion participants Facebook-gushed about how much fun the day had been, I was sad to have missed it. But I realized I got much out of the day that my classmates did not. A sweet navy blue cast, for example. The brand-new knowledge that  putting on underwear and earrings are both jobs for two hands. The realization that I may have been remiss in my sons' gardening education.

But also, a deep, deep knowledge that this could have been so much worse. I'm boundlessly grateful for the relatively soft landing strip of iris, and especially that Youngest Brother was there within literal seconds of that landing.

It wasn't the memory I expected, but it's the one I have, and I'm grateful.

My mother's irises may never be the same.