Random thoughts filled their conversations

This week it was the wheelchairs lined up at Wal-Mart that almost made me cry.
Never again will I be sent ahead to get a wheelchair for Mom while she waits in the car. Never again will she ask for one I have to push instead of the motorized ones I usually came back with. I even miss her laughing at me as I tried to figure out how to fasten the basket to the chair.
The loss hits at odd times, as I had been warned it would. Life goes on and there are no more Saturday phone calls.
This week we would have talked about the fox that took a shortcut through the backyard the other day. It looked in the window at me before deciding I was harmless and trotted on. The neighbor lady said it almost got hit as it crossed Water Street. She also said it startled a couple walking on the other side of Main Street.
I’m not sure it was the same fox I saw in the park awhile ago. The coloring looked a little different. Since the one I had seen in the park had babies, there has to be more than one of the adults running around. They eat small mammals like mice. I am hoping they will intimidate the evil squirrels that raid my vegetables.
I would have told Mom that putting forks in my garden has had limited success. So far it is squirrels, five; me, 11. I have added a pinwheel to my arsenal but I’m not sure yet if it will make a difference.
We would have also talked about Muhammad Ali’s recent death. Anybody who knows me realizes that I think sports are useless and populated with vastly over-paid people. Yet, Ali remains apart.
I remember when a handsome youth named Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali. I thought it was an insult to his parents. After all, they had given him his name for a reason and he was rejecting it. I came to understand that he wasn’t rejecting his parents, but rather he was embracing a religion that spoke to him.
He stood up for his beliefs in a time when it was dangerous to do so. More importantly, in this age of drugs, infidelity and immorality, Ali was never accused of being anything but an honorable man. So few of our icons depart this world without being knocked off the pedestals we put them on.
Mom would have switched subjects to her roses. My sister-in-law sent me a picture of Mom’s roses in full bloom. These are the same ones my brother dug up and transplanted after she died. The ride from her house to his while hanging off the back of his trailer didn’t seem to do them any harm.
We would have talked about my daughter and her family. The Texas floods have receded and their lives are getting back to normal. The kids are finally out of school, much to the relief of everybody.
I would have told her about the youngest one getting sassy with his mom. She was correcting him and he told her she was not his mama. Things went downhill from there.
I would have told her I was sending her a picture of this same sassy boy playing T-ball. Then I would have had to explain what T-ball was. I come to my ignorance of sports honestly.
The conversation would have gone on for exactly fifteen minutes. We would have bounced from one subject to the next with nothing to connect them except our random thoughts.
I remind myself that she is happy now. And if she chooses, she can look down and watch her great-grandchildren get sassy with their mom. Who knows? She may even meet Ali in the after life, but probably not. She has less interest in sports than I do.
Saturday morning conversations are no more. Now, you are the recipient of my random thoughts. I keep reminding myself that this immense sense of loss will pass. Until then, I will write of foxes, children and evil squirrels.