Mom at her walker. Me on my knee scooter. Warming up dinner in the microwave. Mom ate a corner of leftover omelet from the Original Pancake House. I ate leftover sliced pork roast stuffed with garlic and green olives, from dinner Solange and Ana brought the night before. “I called Steve,” I chatted with mom about our neighbor and church choir member. “He spent eight miserable days in the hospital with kidney stones. He said it was a ‘bad deal,’ a ‘bad deal.’” “Oh, that’s terrible,” Mom said. “Did they take his gall bladder out?” Me: “No, mom, he had kidney stones, not gall stones.” Mom: “Oh. Where were his kidney stones?” Me: “Um, his kidney stones were in his kidneys.” I remember, as a teenager, seeing the red flashing lights from my bedroom window. Voices echoed in the hall. I opened my bedroom door and stood, staring, in the door frame. Paramedics bumped their way down the stairs with my dad on a stretcher. He was moaning. I was scared. I didn’t know what kidney stones were. Poor Dad. Poor Steve. Poor Mom.

(Image by Ely Penner from Pixabay)