Saturday, June 15, 2002
The title sums up my Mother to a tee. I love her but it's a hard truth.
Erika loaned me her professional grade recording equipment with the intention of recording my Mother's life story, or at least some of it. So, after putting the kids to bed I set up the gear, hooked a clip-on microphone to Mom and started things rolling. Mom had trouble getting started just talking by herself, so I started asking questions. But the answers were, well, brief.
I think her memory may be failing her a bit, but a typical exchange went like this:
Me: Tell me about your parents. What were they like?
Mom: They were good people. Hard workers.
Ugh. It was a bit like pulling teeth. After about 25 minutes of this I gave up. Still, I am glad to have her voice on tape, and there were some interesting tidbits of information I was able to get.
Perhaps I should have done this a while ago before the incident that kept her in the hospital last winter. As it is on the tape you can hear the steady drone of her oxygen concentrator in the background, alone with several lung-clearing coughs. It is a sad thing to be old and unwell.
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