I've learned...

…that no matter how“safe” your world is if something happens to your mom...you get worried.

My mother is quite the social butterfly. She was never in a sorority in college and has spent the last 40 years of her life making up for that. She is in every possible “social sorority”, church group, and book club they have in Ada America and this spring she started a Bunko club (because she clearly didn’t have enough to do).

She has lived in Ada long enough to either have taught everyone’s child at school OR know them from when my brothers and I were in school. There isn't a baby shower in Ada complete without her name on the invitation as a hostess nor a wedding sufficiently celebrated without Debby energetically "shaking it" on the dance floor at the reception. She is a five foot-three inch ball of scatter-brained energy…and everyone loves her.

Every year when she gets her new calendar for the year…she takes the old one and transfers all the “important” dates onto her new one. Now for most of us that consists of birthdays and anniversaries. For Debby Wallace that encompasses birthdays, anniversaries, the day that I wrecked my Prism in 1996, the day my brother, Travis, won MVP at the Wrangler Bowl in 1997, the day baby brother Trent graduated from medical school in 2007, my dad’s retirement party in 2010, the day the Pyrex dish exploded in her had in 2010, and various other random family facts.

She is the gal you go to when you can’t remember your address from 12 years ago because she’ll have it written down on some random calendar. She remembers all the names of my friend’s children and pets and remembers to ask about them, sadly more often than I think to ask about them.

She sends me “single awareness day” (aka Valentine’s Day) survival packs and always remembers my dog’s birthday with a box of cookies and a new toy.

Some of my greatest memories of childhood are running up the long driveway from the school bus, bursting through the front door, and smelling the familiar scents of freshly vacuumed carpet and snicker doodle cookies hot out of the oven. Those were the days mom was a stay-at-home-mom.

My mother is a caregiver. When I was schlepping through the months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with colon cancer, my mom was at my home every treatment weekend. When I could eat…she’d cook. When I couldn’t…she’d make runs to Walgreen’s for ginger ale. When I was tired…she’d clean my house. And when I was awake and alert…we’d watch movies or read People magazines.

I’m used to my mother always being in good health and taking care of everyone else. So when she called me this week to let me know she had been in a horrid car wreck that had totaled her car, my heart immediately took an elevator drop to my stomach. Hundreds of questions zoomed through my mind, not least of which was…”are you okay???”  Although she was highly medicated and still a little shaky from the experience, she assured me that she was indeed okay.

That sudden increase in my blood pressure and immediate feeling of dread that something bad just happened to my momma was a reminder to not take her for granted. It reminded me that no matter how safe I feel in my little cocoon of a world…that in the blink of an eye it can all go south.

But my mother, always the selfless lady, made sure to let me know that while she was being worked up by the EMTs she was taking note of which cute firemen and EMTs were NOT wearing wedding rings. Oh mom…***sigh***.