12:17; 12/17

While I was swimming the Chicot Challenge, unbeknownst to me a crises was brewing on West Harding Street in Greenwood, Mississippi. My aged mother, who has had more health struggles than Job himself, fell, landing on her face, and producing wounds of an unspeakable number and severity. My sister called the ambulance which transported her to the Greenwood Leflore Hospital where they tapped out, so to speak, and pronounced her beyond their capabilities. She had a broken nose, a split nose, multiple bruises, and damage to her upper lips that the attending doctor declared beyond his ability and the ability of any physician in town to repair. She needed a plastic surgeon. So it was off to Jackson, to a burn center that had several competent plastic surgeons on staff.

She suffered a devastating fall, an ambulance ride to the local hospital, a long ride to Jackson, heavy medications, surgery, and the slow post-surgery recovery that always comes with being put under anesthesia. So what was her main concern after waking up? Was it: 

a) Will I survive? 

b) How long will it take to recover? 

c) Will I have permanent scarring? 

d) When can I go home? or 

e) How is Zane? 

If you chose e) How is Zane? then you probably had a mom like mine.

It is no exaggeration to say that the worse she is the more she seems to worry about me. When she was hospitalized almost constantly in the winter and spring of 2012, her chief concern was, "Did you get something to eat?" I was asked this over and over both to my amusement and annoyance.

"Mom, I have a debit card. I know how to get to the cafeteria."

I think I already wrote in this blog somewhere about the time I was staying with her when she shuffled in on her walker and brought me a bell. 

"What?" I asked.

"If you need something, ring the bell."

I guess I will always be her little fair-haired boy and I don't mind, in fact it's quite touching, but it makes me a very poor care-giver. Whenever I am with her, she wants to know if I have eaten, have I had a nap, do I want to watch something on TV? do I want to take all the newspapers home? did I notice the Diet Cokes in the refrigerator? etc. 

Recently I became Facebook friends with an elderly woman I knew while I was growing up. She had a daughter my age, and two sons, one older and one younger than me. We went to the same church so she remembers the little fair-haired boy my mom sees every time I try to take care of her. Over the past few months, anytime I posted something about training or the swim on the Chicot Challenge IV Event Page, she always responded, "Now Zane, you be careful."

I was always amused.

And touched.

Thank you, Mrs. Browning. I will be careful.

Anyway, to make a short story long, that Saturday when I was swimming for twelve hours, my mom asked my sister over and over, "Have you heard from Zane? Did he finish the swim?"

Finally, Carol was able to give her an answer, "It's over. He swam it in twelve hours and seventeen minutes."

"Twelve seventeen," Mom repeated. She was quiet a second. "That's your dad's birthday."