Writing Through COVID-19: Visiting the Parents

I attended an English teachers' workshop on Tuesday. When we planned it in May, the Iowa Council of Teachers of English was excited to host our first face-to-face event in almost two years. COVID was on a steep decline, we were vaxed up and ready to mingle!

When we met in Cedar Falls Tuesday, the rules had whiplashed. We were indoors. No one knew the vax status of the others in the room. (I think we should wear buttons, "I Like Ike" or "Nixon Now" style. The vax status can proclaim our political alignment and COVID transmissibility simultaneously.) I'd guess that six or eight of the 40 of us were masked. I ate my lunch on the patio where I could feel the breeze.

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On my way home, I went through Ft. Dodge to visit my parents. They have moved into a two-bedroom apartment and one of my sisters is now living with them. It's not ideal. Is any elder-care setting ideal? But I was glad to see the three of them genial, safe, and hungry for sweet corn. 

I brought them a fresh batch from our field, and we enjoyed husking it on their patio. When we finished, I tossed the husks into the plastic tub I'd brought the corn in and said I'd take the husks home to my compost bucket. 

"Let me help you!" my mom chirped. 

I did not need help. The container plus husks weighed perhaps two pounds. But before I could dismiss her offer, she'd hoisted the tub onto her walker's seat and begun pushing it toward the door. 

My initial impulse was to refuse her "help." But by the grace of the pot-bellied gods, I kept my mouth shut, and my mother happily rolled my husk tub on her walker out to my car. 

She walked briskly, hands poised confidently on the walker. As we made our second turn, I wondered if she'd find her way back to her apartment; I flung prayers into the void. 

When we reached my car, I thanked her for her help. I hugged her birdlike bones against my chest. 

It was on the drive home that I started to sort out the poignancy of her helpfulness. My mother has spent her life helping, teaching, giving to others. I understand that age can rob us of our health, our mobility, our memories, our strength. 

But as my mom bustled the corn husks to my car, I saw something else. My parents have fewer and fewer opportunities to feel helpful, to be of use. 
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Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in!

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison