Amidst

I awoke in a strange bed. Mother must have heard my stirrings and quiet rustlings because she came shuffling down the hall, early. I read a portion of John 15 to her, "I Am the vine, you are the branches." 

I continually averted her attention from my father, who is currently not with her due to his recent illness, to childhood memories:

churning butter with her grandmother, 

springs of fresh water,

 deep in the country,

 country hams taken from the smokehouse and given to a hungry man who stopped by the porch, 

moustache cups from which Papa drank his coffee,

 and sleeping in the bed with Big Mama and Papa because the bats hitting against the chimney during the night aroused such fright. This personally was my most favorite because she would pat the side of the couch and smile, remembering the comfort.

The conversation ran along with me filling in the missing pieces of words lost.

I prayed, at times tears running down my cheeks, on the drive home that morning. A drive that took me through heavy traffic, where the sunlight danced across the windshield and the sky was so unbelievably clear after a weekend of mindboggling confusion.

He embraced me. 

It is good to be home with my family once again. Doing the routine things with revitalized appreciation.

Entirely different conversations than that of the previous days.

We laughed a lot last night. A hopeful antidote to balance the tears. 

It might possibly be time to add caregiving as a label. A portion of my day is spent with the concerns of my elderly sick parents these days.