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07/15/13
Crossing Over
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 12:10 pm

 DSCN2995

My mom’s crossing over to the final frontier.

You might call it the great sequel, part two, the next lag
of life’s journey, but she calls it heaven and Mom definitely has one foot
inside the pearly gates.

What do I mean?

Even though I traveled over eight thousand miles to spend time
with my mom at our family’s cottage in Charlevoix, she prefers to carry on a
conversation with my dad, who’s been dead for fifteen years.

That’s a real blow to my ego.

It started the other night when my Mom saw my father
standing next to the dock.

“There’s Dick!”

“Who?”

“You’re father, Ginger.”

“Dad? Where do you see him?”


“Over by the dock. Let’s go get him.” Mom was waving him
down, the fat under her arm wobbling in the wind.

DSCN3005


But instead of saying,  “There’s no one out there”, I decided to go
along with my mother’s vision, knowing that the exercise would do her good.


As her top dragster walker approached where my dad was
supposedly standing, mom  was
disappointed that he wasn’t there. “That’s funny, I thought Dick wanted to stay
for dinner.”


“Maybe if you cooked pot roast, he would have stayed.”


“Maybe a  hippopotamus?”


We turned around and walked back then watch more episodes of
Seinfeld.


The next night, Mom set requested I put an extra plate at the
table.


“Who’s the extra plate for?”


“Your father. How about giving him a call to make sure he didn’t get caught in the snow.”


“Gee, I didn’t know they got phone service in heaven. Do you
know his number?”


“It’s the same one he had in Grand Haven. Call him!”

Kidney


“All right.”Knowing that I couldn’t bump my mom from the
topic, I had to think of a way to all him without the help of a medium and
without burning minutes on my summer burner phone. I spotted an over-sized TV remote
that  resembled an old school cordless model squeezed between the rustic cushions. I
pushed in Dad’s old phone number and handed it back to my mom.


Mom put the faux phone up to her ear. “I think his number’s been disconnected.”


Mom has other invisible visitors who show up from all eras
of her life. Friends from nurses training. Her older brother and sister. Moses and other
wise guys from the Bible. Most of them are faces and friends who have passed
away, except for Wolf Blitzer.


Does she really see them? Are they calling her into heaven?


I don’t know.


Unfortunately, most of  her visitors show up around 3 in the morning. Last week,
there was a big prayer meeting followed by birthday party where she sang a few
rounds of happy birthday.

I decided not be concerned until she asked me to cut the
cake.

And yes, she did.

Meanwhile, I’m in Grand Rapids where they celebrated Gerald Ford’s 100th birthday yesterday, passing out slabs of free cake at the Gerald Ford museum.

He’s been dead since 2006.

Party on!

 

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