I Never Liked Phone Calls, But...

Mother loved looking through the monthly "Chatbooks" that we brought her
with 30 pictures of our grandchildren from the month before. 

I never liked phone calls for "just visiting". It seemed to me that it made for strained conversations and awkward silences. My mother was a little the same way. But somehow, during her last few years, I learned to enjoy our phone calls. 

As Mother's memory began to fade a bit, I decided she needed someone to check on her daily.  At first several years ago, we seven siblings worked out a routine: we would each call one day a week. Somehow that did not work out. Eventually I decided that since I was the one who lives in Rome and have pretty good health and mobility, I would try to drop by to see Mother daily. My two Rome area siblings also visited her regularly. And the out-of-town siblings as often as they could. Of course there would be days when life would intervene and I couldn't make it to her house; then I would call. I missed very few days -- either visiting or calling -- the rest of her life. 

When we were out of town the calls were easiest. The change of time zones on our California trips, especially, gave me an opportunity to call Mother. It was my routine to walk for an hour or more each morning in California. Since our internal clocks are on Georgia time when we first arrive there, I wake up early -- great time for a walk. Early morning in California is mid morning in Georgia so it became a daily habit to call Mother while I walked the hills of Vista, California, and report to her on her great-granddaughters' doings and to hear from her about the doings in Rome. I really enjoyed that. And those experiences made us more comfortable, I think, with "just visiting" calls back in Rome on those days when  other obligations kept me from visiting her in person.

A year ago today was such a day. It was a Monday. Our annual two/three day Matthews Family Reunion was being held at our house. I was working to have the place ready for our guests. I had repainted the Little Tykes playset and all of the yard furniture.  I had hung a wooden baby swing. The cousins would arrive the next day. I had been over to Mother's on Sunday, the day before, for a nice visit and I'd taken a picture of her with the huge hibiscus bloom. 

So today I'd just call. We had a nearly fifteen minute, or maybe even longer, conversation. She seemed fine. She was very interested to hear what I'd been doing in the yard and about the cousins who were coming in. I think we mentioned the fiftieth wedding anniversary party the girls were planning for Sheila and me in less than three weeks. And, of course the expectation she'd see my daughters and granddaughters in a few days, including -- for the first time -- her namesake, Ruth Irmgard Carlin.

I would talk or read or sing or pray, or otherwise try to communicate with Mother many times over the next eleven days -- and I treasure those eleven days -- but that breezy telephone call was the last "normal" conversation I would ever have with my mother.