I’d gotten in the habit of waiting for Maga’s caregiver to text me when it was a good time to call, but with work running late, cooking dinner, a zoom birthday call, another facetime, and no text, I lost track of time. I relied on my old faithful, google calendar.
The notification popped up like old times and I called like old times and Maga answered like old times.
“Hello, Abby dear.”
“Whatcha up to, Maga?”
“I just finished dinner.”
“How was it?”
“Average. But it’s over now, so there’s that. Did you go to work today?”
“If you mean my 2nd bedroom, then yes, I went to work.”
That took some explaining and re-explaining, but we forged on… to the weather.
“What was your weather like today?” I asked.
I could hear Caregiver M coaching Maga on what to say. “Hot. About 92°.”
“Wow! That is quite warm.”
“I don’t really like the hot weather. I just put up with it when it comes.”
If that’s a mediation motto, I don’t know what is.
The conversation looped back to the pandemic and quarantines and being stuck inside.
“I wonder when it will be over,” Maga said.
“Not anytime soon, I don’t think.”
“Horrors,” Maga said.
Her flat tone cracked me up despite the terrible truth of it. She was her old self and I was loving it.
“Is it July?” she said.
“Not quite yet. Mid-June.”
“It’s been 6 months now?”
“Not quite. It feels like 6, but it’s been about 3.”
“Did you go to work today?”
“Well, I worked from home on my computer. I’m lucky to be able to do that.”
“So you work through your computer. I see. That explains a lot to me.”
Even if she doesn’t understand computers, by golly, I do believe she understood that they are genius machines that allow us to do amazing things, like work during a global pandemic or see each while still remaining in quarantine.
“Oh, Abby darling, how I’d love to see you.”
The feeling was mutual, but I didn’t try to push my luck with getting her hooked up on facetime. We’ve been down that road and it’s shorter than her understanding of how computers work. I settled for the soothing balm of hearing her say my name. It had been a few weeks since she’d been able to address me as such and I wasn’t about to gloss over this moment.
Abigail Mumford 