Mother's Day during Covid At Home

It's Sunday!  I know you can tell because it's also Mother's Day.  2020.  Arguably the shittiest Mother's Day ever.

(And if you weren't quite sure about Mother's Day, I don't believe you, it's very much advertised)

Let's get this out of the way, because it's about me, not either of the mothers in my life (so much): my iPhone keeps reminding me I am supposed to be going to the airport today for a flight to London.  I'm not; it was cancelled back in March, but my iPhone, which can read the events when they appear, seems to be unable to pick up on the clues that events aren't actually happening. 😠

But that that was on Mother's Day was only coincidental.

Typically on Mother's Day we would take my wife out (me and the kids; these day only one near home).  Nope, none of that today.

Or we'd go do something special.  A ballgame?  A movie?  Nope. Nope.

So, here we are, week 9 of our quarantine, and Mother's Day is going to be a vase of flowers (thanks to one child) and a chocolate peanut butter cake and a nice dinner courtesy of the other child.

Low key.

But that doesn't include my mother.  Who is 86.  A little over a year ago she moved into an assisted-living place.  It's a nice place, with lots of stuff to do.

Or did.

She hasn't been able to visitors since late March.  They started letting them have visitors, but they had to come through the front door and be screened, but it wasn't long before they gave that up. 

So, no visitors.

And they can't leave their room.  Or, rather, they've eliminated all the reasons mom used to have to leave her room.  They used to not only have communal meals, but also a series of games, talks, movies, entertainment, and prayer meetings and bible studies that kept you active and chatty.  And, let me tell you from what my mother reports, they gossip more than middle schoolers. 😒

To top all this off, my mother lost her phone two weeks ago.  You know, she's an old, so it was a landline and there was weather and it turned into a crackling monstrosity. 

So, she went over a week with no phone. (I got her an iPhone, which she thanked me for profusely, but she gave it up for the landline like Sonic the Hedgehog chasing something).  She had a terrible time. 

So, here we are to Mother's Day and she has her flowers, and some texts, and some phone calls, but there's no big buffet lunch (like last year), no guests (like last year), no evening service (like last year), nothing terribly exciting.

A bummer of a day for everyone. 

Happy Mother's Day!