Mowing the lawn

   While I was mowing the lawn at my Mom's former home today, it struck me how easy it was to do. And yet, over the past two months, Michael dreaded being asked to do it. Dreaded it.
   Also, I remembered how he would call me at work to report all his lawn-mowing. In the past two months, he called several times in a row every afternoon. Usually he would report that he had mowed some section of our lawn. Usually, I was slamming my head against a deadline and had to apologize that I couldn't talk.
   I did feel bad about continually rebuffing his calls, but also I felt annoyed. 
   I forgive myself for that. 
   If he had said to me, “Something is wrong with my heart and I am scared,” not only would I have stopped what I was doing, I would have rushed home to be with him.

   Maybe he didn’t know he was worried.
   Maybe he wasn’t worried.

   Throughout the last year, his final year, if I sent him a text, he would immediately call to repeat to me the information I had just texted him. Every time.
   He must have been worried. 

   I was a little worried. He was puffing through his lips for no good reason, as he did 20 years ago before the bypass surgery. 
   I was trying not to worry about that.