Mom’s Mail

I pay all her bills online; in fact, most are on autopay. I took over this chore when Dad was still alive but in hospice. More than a few times, after battling with Mom over her maddening propensity to donate indiscriminately to small charities, I’ve tried to fire myself as her bookkeeper. My four siblings, however, refuse to accept my resignation. 

“Just hold onto them, Mom,” I say with a calm the Dalai Lama would applaud. “I’ll get them when I take you to the dentist next week.”

“Sounds good, honey.” 

I sigh as I hang up. I’m glad she’s finally dropped the tag, “dollie,” an odd habit she picked up a few years ago, much like wearing a Christmas sweater in August (she does do this, too, occasionally, and that’s when I get my twin sister on speed dial for a giggle.) Since reaching five feet six in eighth grade, it’s been a long time since I felt petite, much less resembled a dollie. 

When I arrive to take my mother for yet another dental appointment—this one is another consult for removing the roots leftover from teeth that have broken off at the gumline, not from poor hygiene, but from dumb luck, old age, or both—she trudges out of the swanky senior living center, pushing her walker. Inside the handy basket hooked to the front is the usual cargo: loose cocktail napkins she nabs daily from the restaurant, a small purse, and an almost-clear blue plastic bag stuffed with envelopes. 

The mail. 

I can predict, almost envelope to envelope, what’s inside: a couple of statements from a mail-order catalog house she adores, an invoice from the Chicago Tribune (when did a three-month newspaper subscription cost over seven hundred dollars?), and a plethora of stamped sweepstakes returns and charity donations. 

I should offer a little history here on the charity and sweepstake boondoggles. My siblings and I have run the gamut trying to stop Mom from giving away cash she doesn’t have. Wimpy me has never confessed, when pressed by my Betty White lookalike 93-year-old mother—“Do I have enough money, honey?”—that she is perilously close to outliving her resources, and I’m doing my creative best to work every angle.  

Back to the bills. 

After Mom kisses my cheek and grins in a way that hides most of the vacant spaces in her smile, she hands me the blue plastic bag. This is the same bag that the very expensive local newspaper arrives in at her doorstep each morning, something she reads meticulously over the course of the day.

“This is for you,” Mom says in her scratchy whisper. Then, shuffling along, she pushes the walker toward my waiting car. 

I watch her and shake my head, marveling at her fortitude, grace—all things considered—and perseverance. She’s upright, dressed, and ready to get out. I help her into the car, buckle her seatbelt—she has difficult locating the receptacle underneath her flowy clothes and generous bottom—and stow the walker in the trunk of the car. 

While doing this, there’s usually a breeze swirling through the covered drive, and this tempest almost always lifts the napkins from the walker basket and sends them hither and yon. I wonder whether Mom ever notices the drop in inventory. 

I open the back door behind the driver’s seat, drop the blue plastic bag on the floor, and settle in behind the wheel.

I turn to my mother. “All set?”

“Yes,” she croaks, and off we go to the dentist, where I repeat the whole in-and-out-of-the-car routine before depositing her back under the senior center portico.

“Thanks, dear. For all you do,” she glows. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’re welcome, Mom.”

Sounds like a scene right out of an old Ozzie and Harriet sketch, doesn’t it? 

And it almost is. 

But in this reality show, I drive home, free the envelopes from the tight blue plastic bag, and shred all but three—the ones I want to check against the online checkbook registry. Do I feel bad about all the stamps Mom paid for, licked, and stuck on that stack of charity donations and sweepstakes entries? I very definitely do not. They are a small price to pay compared with what she would have spent otherwise—money she simply doesn’t have. (At one point in time, I tallied Mom’s donations and they came to eight hundred dollars. A sizeable amount, given she is essentially a charity herself. Mum’s the word!)

Getting older myself while managing my mother’s affairs is an odd juxtaposition. She hands me the jobs she and Dad once handled without a thought, and I take them on reluctantly, tenderly. Sometimes with a shredder. These days, my love for Mom looks like dental consults, runaway cocktail napkins, and intercepting sweepstakes entries before they leave the building. 

 Love has become part devotion, part deception, and part damage control. 

Follow Me Here

September 6-22: I’m hiking a section of the El Camino again with Laura Davis’ group, The Writer’s Journey. I’ll be doing research for the third book in my Twice memoir trilogy; it’s about my journey through love and loss while hiking the Camino. 

October 7 & 27: I’ll be co-teaching two webinars for the Author Learning Center at 1:30-2:30 ET with author Jennifer Briggs, titled: Memoir or Fiction: Choosing the Right Path. 

October 9-11: Find me at the She Writes Press author retreat at the Westin Rancho Mirage Resort in Palm Springs, CA. Thrilled to be selected as a presenter for the panel, “Marketing for Memoirists,” and can’t wait to see my She Writes sisters.

Due to a publishing glitch, the second book in my Let’s Go with Lulu children’s book series, DJ and Lulu Go to the Car Wash, will release later in the year. It’s based on the real-life story about adventures with my oldest grandson during the COVID era.​

March 8 – 12, 2027: I will attend the Her Spirit women’s writing retreat put on by Story Summit in Tucson, Arizona at El Conquistador Tucson, A Hilton Resort. 

Follow Julie by visiting her website, subscribe to her bimonthly newsletters, and listen to previous podcast recordings where she discusses topics like adoption, identity, family relationships, sisterhood and belonging.

Don’t miss a blog post!

Receive my blog posts directly to your inbox.