Mom fussed over Dad as she and I left for Smith’s. “I will miss you,” she cooed, patting his hand.  “Will you be alright until we get back?”  At the grocery store, she pulled a sandwich from a bank of coolers, and whispered her excitement: “I’m getting this for your father.  He is going to love it!”  The sandwich looked unremarkable, but her whisper conveyed the pride and power of a simple choice and purchase, when so much has fled her influence.  She delivered the sandwich to Dad immediately upon our return, and looked chagrined at his request to add slices of sweet onion and slathers of mayonnaise and mustard, requests she perhaps thought challenged her whimsical magnanimity, rained on her pride, and poo-pooed her power.  But, in the end, they both happy munched on their lunch, with Special Agent Gibbs on the screen.  For the first time in a year, Dad successfully watched our neighborhood church services online.  Zoom has failed him consistently, with bad microphones making the speakers unintelligible with their underwater garble.  Frustrated week after week, he merely fell asleep, later receiving Mom’s report.  With polite urging from several congregants, including me, the three local congregations pooled their budgets and purchased the equipment to connect directly to the Church’s broadcasting system, with a dedicated camera and hard-wired mic.  “I loved seeing church today, Rog!  Weren’t the talks great!”    I stayed home with him so I could refresh the link when the screen froze from low bandwidth.  There are always things to improve.  But he sang from his hymn book, and appreciated the emblems of sacramental bread and water.  Walking down our street that evening, Mom relished the fresh air, and Dad admired the gold-tinged clouds, and a distant airplane flew by the moon, bright silver from the western sun, and Steve and Marla emerged from their house “to wave to the parade” of two wheelchairs, one pushed and the other motorized, and to say hello.  Nice neighbors.  But I cannot take my parents for walks often enough, and Mom aches to get out of the house.  I asked the Church’s women of the Relief Society if they could assign “sisters” to take turns picking up Mom every Wednesday for half-hour outings.  The “sisters” were delighted—“we just love your mom”—and texted the next day with September’s schedule.  Such nice neighbors.  I will report her adventures.

(Pictured above: a mere four hours’ effort to extirpate weeds and shape shrubs in the back yard.)