The Ruby Rose Report: A Cane

 

When you see a soul everyday, and they slowly change, you don’t notice. Then one day, something happens and you notice.

Those are never good days.

My Mommy, when Foley was barely beyond a puppy, had knee replacement surgery, a week before the Patriots won their first Super Bowl. Her knee spans Tom Brady’s career, but it was not as celebrated.

The next year, at the same time of year, she had a second knee replacement. The Patriots didn’t win the Super Bowl. Mommy took that as a sign to never have another surgery.

The knee replacements were supposed to last 15 years, Mommy’s knees are pushing ten years past their expiration date and it's starting to show.

When Mommy landed on her right foot she did so with the delicacy of the T-Rex in the first Jurassic Park. Then she would lurch the rest of her body forward like someone trying to haul a giant octopus onto a sailboat.

My Dad encouraged Mommy to see a doctor, but she didn’t see the point, Tom Brady had retirted.

Having had a string of illnesses and operations in her younger years, Mommy vowed not to give into her maladies.

Each step sent a bolt of lightning up and down her leg and burrowed into her hip. But she toughed it out, like Tom Brady, staying on the field until the last down.

“Tom Brady has retired,” the box called Alexa said.

A year later Mommy retired from being a martyr. She did not see a doctor, and would not get an operation, but she agreed to get a cane,

She ordered it from Amazon.. I reminded her that, after Jeff Bezos would not allow the Washington Post to endorse Harris, she said she would never order from Amazon again.

“Fluff that I am in pain.”.

It was almost ten days of civil disobedient activity.

Not a bad record for this vicinity.

I don’t like the cane, it's like an unpredictable third leg. And it doesn’t sense when it hits me.

Also, I don’t like what it represents.  It means my parents are getting older.

Children were not meant to outlive their parents, and parents aren’t meant to outlive their dogs.

I shared my concerns with Foley who told me not to worry, a knee is not a vital organ, and walking on two legs is overrated. I said I didn’t want her to go first.

It would be nice to go together.

“And so you shall,” Foley said “when Mommy forgets to unplug her curliign iron and goes to sleep.”

Sometimes Foley isn’t a comfort.

I guess Mommy and I will gracefully age together and we are both old and gray and when one slips away the other will follow them into the dark.

As for Dad I am sure taking care of the two of us will send him to the Bridge to set up shop before us.