Day #148 Writing Through COVID-19: A Letter From My Mom

 My mom sent me a letter.

• She said they had found a book, didn't know where it came from, but thought it might be mine because it was full of funny poems like the ones I'd shared with them during their stay.
  (Yes, I'd sent it via Amazon, with a note. We'd talked about it on the phone as well.)
  
  
• She said she and my dad cannot leave their rooms until August 14 because of COVID control.
  (Nice alliteration, Mom.)
  
  
• Vern Dog is at Critter Camp for two weeks.
  (I was the one who dropped him off.)
  
  
• Nurses take their temperatures and bring their meals.
  
  
• My dad and she have been reading a book about elephants aloud to each other.
  
  
• This reminds her of her own mother, who read each year's new Laura Ingles Wilder book from cover aloud on Christmas Day.
  (She has told me this at least 100 times.)
  
  
• My mother said her mother died in her early 50s.
  (True. I know this.)
  
  
• Because my mother's mother died so young, she never learned the truth about Laura Ingles Wilder: that it was her daughter who actually wrote the books (under her mother's name) and painted the family to be far more perfect than in real life.
  (My mother talked about this many times while she lived with me. It seemed to gall her that the happy stories were less than accurate.)

• The next paragraphs delved into how terrible Pa was in real life, moving the family from place to place and leaving behind unpaid bills.
  (I'm not checking the accuracy of any of this. What I do understand is that my mom loved the Wilder family stories and felt betrayed when she learned they were fictionalized.)
  
  
• Mom said again that Pa left town without paying his bills.
  (This woman has a black-and-white sense of right and wrong. Not paying bills = wrong.)
  
  
• In the next paragraph, my mom again said she was reading "Elephants" with my dad, adding how cozy it is to read to each other and learn about elephants.
  
  
• She said they were in isolation until Aug. 13.
  (This is one day short of Aug. 14, which she said at the beginning of the letter, but I get it. These days blur together.)
  
  
• Vern is at Critter Camp for two weeks.
  (Yup.)
  
  
• Their newspapers are coming regularly.
  (Thank god.)
  --------------------------

The letter ended abruptly without a closing or a signature, but the handwriting is careful and surprisingly precious to me. Her repetitions feel like refrains, circling back to say: 

We're in our rooms.
We read to each other.
The Laura Ingles Wilder books were a sham.
Vern is at Critter Camp.
Pay your bills.

Enough.
Be well.

Write.

Allison

SWEET KIWIS: Wolf's first playdate with his friend Leah, 
born the day before he was.
Their mothers attended prenatal Le Leche classes together,
then shared a hospital wing!

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