Time spent with family members should be treasured (10/16/06)

"If I get going fast enough, I'm pretty sure I can make it," my brother, Michael, said a week ago Sunday. We all started laughing then we realized he was serious as he began backing up the wheelchair that held our mother. He was trying to get up enough speed to get the wheelchair onto the sidewalk. The concrete dipped down towards the parking lot at the corner but not far enough. When he hit the curb cut the first time Mom almost fell out. Thank goodness she knows that none of us are any good at pushing her. She knows to hold on tight and to be prepared for anything. I can't imagine anybody else having that much patience with our ineptitude or laughing at us as we try our best to dump her out.

After much maneuvering - and no running starts - we did manage to get her wheeled over the sidewalk and to the stands where we watched her grandson, my other brother's boy, play football. As you may know, I am not much of a sports fan. If all sports ceased to exist tomorrow it would not make one bit of difference in my life. Having said that, watching fourth- and fifth-grade boys play football was highly entertaining even if it did take me almost the whole game to figure out where the goal line was. Some of them acted like they were afraid to touch the other players and refused to give chase if the boy evaded their first effort. Others were on the bottom of a pile of boys each and every play.

The cheerleaders were equally entertaining. They ranged in size from tiny to taller than my mom. At one point they were joined by little bitty girls that I presumed were somebody's sisters. The cheers were predictable and bore little relevance to what was going on in the field. The half-time show had to be seen to be believed. If that was music they were performing to then I am very out-of-touch with today's tunes. There was something vaguely disconcerting about watching children perform moves that would have been considered sexy if done by an adult.

Our team won and we all cheered and clapped. This school was our arch-rival when I was young and it felt odd to be glad for them. They were playing the team from the town where we used to get our groceries so at least it wasn't my old school that got beat. Then it was time for another precarious trip for Mom and her wheelchair. This time we let the football player push and he gave her a tour of the parking lot before he delivered her to the car.

Sundays with family are always fun and sometimes emotionally draining. I know families who rarely get together and I know families who get together only to fuss and argue. I even know families who get together then proceed to watch television and ignore each other. I do not understand any of them. To me, family is precious. I am too aware of family members who are no longer part of our gatherings.

I am also afraid that I should stock up on seatbelts just in case the visits with Mom are preview of how I will be treated when and if I get old. I can just see granddaughter Emma racing my future wheelchair down the parking lot and me sprawling on the sidewalk when she hits a bump.

I remember when my daughter was little and we would take the backroads to Mom's. She always liked it when we hit the "whoop-booms." Those were the rises in the road that if we hit them at just the right speed would make the car go "whoop" then "boom" as it came back to earth. Of course, nowadays that would probably be considered child endangerment but back then it was a great source of glee as she implored me to "do it again!"

Our mother never asks us to "do it again!" when the front wheels of her wheelchair get caught on the curb but maybe if we get her going fast enough she might. Then again, I don't think we will test that theory any time soon unless maybe there is another football game we can take her to … who knows?[[In-content Ad]]