END OF AN ERA

The phone rang on Saturday afternoon, and who was it but my older sister Tessie. (Much older)

“You ready for this?”

Me: “ What?”

“Mom is retiring from the hospital!”

Me: “What?”

“Yes, she called her friend and told her not to pick her up anymore she was finished.”

Me: “What?”




So the end of an era comes to me once again. Mom, who loved to work, who took pride in the fact that she was still active, still mobile was taking herself out of the game. Why? Because the hospital felt probably that she was becoming a liability to them, a danger to herself at 93 to traipse all over the hospital.

The hospital decided to reassign her duties that made her sit all day long, rather than be up and about. Mom didn’t volunteer to sit, but to help people, and so she thought: No, sitting is not for me.



I wonder if she will look for a job in construction, or maybe a road crew somewhere?

She has a boy toy Henry, who wisely wanted her to stop with the hospital, and she does have so many hobbies. She can sew, knit, crochette and cook, she can read enough with help of magnification, and I’m sure, like any woman worth her salt, can still yak it up.


Oh course, she can always call and correct me.

But the world will not be the same for Mom, no, without her little friends who she meets when she goes there, the luncheons for the volunteers, the pride in her pins awarded for her service, the inside conversations with the doctors and nurses, all that will end.

When we met as a family, she could proudly point to her days of ‘work’ as she called it. She loved every moment of it, and I think it helped to keep her alive. I guess there is a lesson in this for all of us: you can work to live, better than you can live to work, but no matter what you do, love what it is you do.

So now, when we do get together, I will be careful about what I say, to remind myself that she still is a valuable member of society, that there is still things she needs to give to the world, and the world needs from her. After all, she still carries that wooden spoon, which I named: “Gentle Persuasion”!