Call your mom.

[rug]

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I actually did, my dear Rug...

Today, in fact. She was glad to hear from me.

My dad's in a rehab/convalescent hospital, following a heart attack and a broken hip. She's stranded at home, since she doesn't drive. Her neighbors are helping out.

She's hundreds of miles from any of us...it's tough right now.


We had a great chat.

[rug]

3. I'm sure she was.

It's been 13 years since I could call mine.

Good health to you both.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

2. Wish I could.

She has been dead 3 years now.

[rug]

4. Me too.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

5. ...

[PasadenaTrudy]

20. Mine too.... Oct. 2010 n/t

[tavalon]

6. Wish I could

She died 42 years ago. It's really strange now that I'm older than she was when she died. I used to look in the mirror every day and see my mother. Now, I'm in between. I don't really see my mother, but I'm starting to see her mother, who raised me from when I was 13. Alas, I can't call her either.

But I was blessed to have my mother for my first eight years and my grandmother for almost 30 of my years.

Thanks for the reminder for those who are still blessed. Time is short indeed.

[rug]

7. I'm getting close to my father's age when he died.

Then I'll see my kids and hope they'll handle the sad times of life as well as they handle the good times.

[tavalon]

10. I don't know if you were trying to say this, but

it is common for "children" to assume that they will die at the same age as their same sex parent did. I spent all of my twenties assuming I would die at 36, not with fear, just assumption. As I hit, 34, I decided it was time to re-examine that as I didn't want to create a self fulfilling prophecy.

[rug]

11. Lol, the thought has crossed my mind but I really don't buy into it.

Thanks for the reassurance though.

[tavalon]

14. Actually, there are books out there on the subject

It reassured me to know I wasn't the only one making that assumption.

Weirdly, I just realized tomorrow is the anniversary of her death, 42 years ago.

[rug]

17. Have good thoughts tomorrow.

[Rhiannon12866]

19. I've had the same thoughts since I lost my mother a year-and-a-half ago. :(

My mother was 85, but it was an accident, and my Dad was 62. My grandparents, my Dad's parents, died at 97 and 48 respectively.

Wishing you comforting thoughts tomorrow. That has to be so hard.

[Chan790]

23. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, it's not at all uncommon...

for people to actually die at about the same age as their parents did, if their parents died of natural causes.

In my case, I'd be fucked as both of my parents are alive but neither one of them is on pace to live even as long as their parents or to normal life-expectancy. My father's father lived to be 100. My father has serious health issues and is unlikely to make it to 65. My mother has an autoimmune disease and no concern for health-management. They're both alcoholics. They both smoke. They've both had precancerous health scares. Both had one-or-more near-fatal illness by the time they were my age.

[politicat]

8. Tomorrow, maybe. It's Friday night, so she's in one of three places:

1) home, bed, alone, sleeping. Midnight phone calls for no reason except shooting shit will cause 1200 miles of panic. I like my mother, but am not so enamored with her massive Familial Anxieties Database, which lives in warm shutdown and can produce every pending family crisis in 1.3 seconds, with footnotes and contingency plans. (This is her semi-tame functional neurosis -- complex system planning and implementation is what keeps her in tea and tires.)

2) home, bed, not alone, not asleep. I don't wanna know -- as long as she's got condoms and a safe word, that ain't my business. But an interrupted, busy mom will be highly annoyed mom who might decide that I truly deserve to inherit the family's ultimate white elephant.

3) out with her peeps, enjoying their escape from the salt mines. Worrying her with a late call for no reason will put her on high alert, and will convince her that there is something wrong that I'm not telling, which may result in my hyper caffeinated mom on my doorstep within 24 hours.

I'm lucky enough that Mom has an active and fulfilling social, work and sex life, that she has her own sets of BFFs with whom she can squee or sulk as needed. She's happy, and I like it to stay that way.

She ain't neglected. Most weekends, she texts me at least one tipsy group self portrait from whatever function she's at.

[rug]

9. Good for her.

[easychoice]

12. I wish I could...I was too young to lose her...

[rug]

13. Good song, I hadn't heard it before.

Thanks.

[BainsBane]

15. I called my Dad

with Father's Day coming up, I wanted to make plans to take him out.

[rug]

16. Enjoy the day!

[BainsBane]

18. Thanks

I'm taking him out Tuesday night for dinner instead of Sunday.

[Wait Wut]

21. I miss my sister.

She was the one that raised me, with help from my brother.

This is the third year I've had to cancel a vacation to go see them. Her birthday is the 25th of this month. Birthdays are the hardest.

I don't miss my mother. She died about 5 years ago.

[Mojorabbit]

22. I took mine out to dinner tonight. :) nt