I Don't Cry

I don't cry.  Big, dramatic, traumatic things...  no tears.  My pets die.  I found a friend when she died unexpectedly.  I divorced twice.  My son moved away.  I didn't cry.

Commercials make me cry.  So does some music.  But real life?  Rarely.

I visited Mom in the evening as I usually do, and changed her bandage.  The home health care people weren't coming until Monday, and I felt that was a day too far to let her wear the same bandage, so I changed it on Saturday.  

We chatted a little as we usually do, then she changed the subject abruptly.  "Tell me about these pull-ups people want me to use."  What?  She'd been wearing them for years, but in the rehab, she'd been wearing diapers because she wasn't mobile enough to get to the bathroom on her own.

"Well, they're like regular underwear, except it has absorbent padding in them in case of an accident.  They work the same way."

This was met by a blank look.  Then I saw wheels turning, but they went nowhere.  She told me she didn't remember how underwear OR pull-ups worked.  That she needed a tutorial on how to use them.

Mom.  Using big words to tell me she didn't know how to use underwear..  The irony and humor weren't lost on me, but later, in my car, I cried.