Mothers Day – Enjoy them cause things do change.

I was thinking about a Mother’s Day about 15 years ago and what started out to be a good day.

I usually picked up my Mother and took her home to our house for lunch and the afternoon but this particular year we decided as we were both Mothers that we would go out for lunch. With my then husband and our two daughters we picked up my Mother and went to a child friendly restaurant close to her house. We ate, chatted, and had a couple of glasses of wine – perfect! We went back to my Mother’s house for coffee and were about to leave when she asked the father of my children if he could change the light globe in the hall as the fitting was too high for her to reach and this is when our day fell apart!

 John went to the garage to get the ladder (as the ceilings were high), propped it up in the hall, and reached up to detach the old glass light fittings cover, then I hear a smash followed by a jell – buggar he’s broken it I think to myself from the kitchen, I go to investigate and find the walls sprayed with blood and him just holding his hand. Here we go again (forgot to mention B had broken her arm the weekend before and was in plaster). My Mother who is not known for having a cool head in such cases tried to give John Panadol (still trying to work that one out!) with me yelling Nooooooo. After a discussion that involved me putting my bossy voice on I got a towel for John’s hand, wrapped it up, left the children with my Mother and drove John to Hospital. As Murphy would have it we struck every red light and by the time we reached the Hospital John was ashen. I dropped him outside Emergency so I could park the car and by the time I got inside he was nowhere to be seen and for those who know St George Hospital in Sydney the Emergency Department is always full. I walked up to the counter and enquired as to the whereabouts of John, they pointed into the nurse’s assessment area where he was sitting in a chair. A very nice Nurse let me in and explained that John had run into Emergency screaming he was bleeding to death and they needed to help him NOW. You have to understand that John is 6’2” tall about 120kg at the time and looks extremely mean when he wants to so they felt they had no option but to let him in. What none of us knew at the time he had no idea how much blood is actually in the human body and he genuinely thought he was going to die; to his embarrassment when they took the towel off that I had put on rather tightly the bleeding had stopped. On inspection by the Doctor they discovered he had also cut the tendon as well as the artery so at 7.30am the following day I took him back to the Hospital for surgery. The following week we had to go back to the Hospital for B to have another X-ray to see how her arm was healing. We were ushered into the X-ray department and stand at the rather high counter with the relevant paperwork, give it to the lady behind the rather high counter – she looks at me, she looks at John then back to me and says “this is not for him” as John stands there bandaged in a sling – my response – no its for her, pointing to B that was not as tall as the counter. She stands up, sees B, looks back at me and says ‘you poor thing’. In the end B’s arm was fine, John slipped in the bath and had to have another operation to rejoin the tendon but all’s well now. We never had Mothers Day lunch out again. 

Six years ago I collected my Mother from her house, took her home for Lunch and the afternoon, the usual thing. Then the following February she had a stroke that has confined her to a water chair ever since (she slides straight out of a wheel chair). We still celebrate Mothers Day at the Nursing Home but it’s not and never will be the same so please enjoy your Mother’s Day whatever you do, as things do change when you least expect them to.

Love to all xx