“Mom’s Gone Missing!”
“JR, your mom is missing and I can’t find her!” A feeble voice on the phone said in a tone
nearing panic.
“Yes, Dad, I hear you are worried about Mom. When did you see her last?”
JR responded calmly, even as his list of appointments sat on his desk
telling him he had not one minute to spare today.
“Just this morning at breakfast!
Please come out and help me find her!”
“Dad, maybe she ran an errand, is her car there, her purse? Have you tried calling her?” said the
harried son to his dad who hadn’t made a phone call in months, until NOW.
“ No, her purse is here, the car is here. She would have taken me on any errand, she knows I like to take
drives with her.” The old man wheezed.
“OK Dad, it seems you have covered all the bases, I will stop and pick
up Crissy if she has time. ‘Two heads
are better than one’ as Mom would say.
We will find her together!”
JRs given name was Horace - after his father - but when he outgrew the
“big Horace, little Horace” period of his life he just took JR as his
name. He even had it changed officially
before he opened his insurance office.
JR called his sister Crissy at her Florist Shop – Crissy’s Floral
Creations – and fortunately she had her assistant in to work this morning to
cover the shop and with no pressing orders to fill she could go with her
brother to “answer the call for help!”
The trip to “the ranch” didn’t take long; it was only ten miles out of
town. Mom and Dad had retired there
twenty years ago and seemed to enjoy the quiet, slower pace. For a time they had the usual “stock” – some
chickens, a pony for the grandkids to ride, a calf, and a piglet to fatten for
the freezer, and a large garden, which they tended together. However, lately it seemed that tending
themselves took most of their energy what with Doctors’ appointments and just
the day-to-day jobs on “the spread!”
Dad was waiting on the porch in his rumpled sweats and a stained
T-shirt, definitely not ready for a “trip to town!” “I have searched everywhere and I just can’t find her!” he stammered.
“OK Dad, let us get a look at the house first and see if we can find
any clues as to when, where, and how she managed to ‘disappear.’” JR consoled his father.
Crissy had headed for the kitchen where several bowls, which once held
oatmeal, decorated the table and the counter top. “When did you say that you saw Mom last?” she asked.
“Just this morning, we read the devotional book after breakfast like we
always do. I remember it was the story
of the Lost Sheep, and now she is lost!
He answered as the tears puddled in his eyes.
Crissy looked at the booklet on the table, her Dad’s two-day beard, and
realized that her Mom had been missing for two days according to the date of
the Lost Sheep piece in the well-used booklet.
“Mom would never have left the dishes to crust up, we both know that,
and the story Dad is talking about was two days ago!” she whispered to her
brother.
“We have to find her quickly, you check the office and I will check the
bedroom. See if you see anything that
would suggest where she could have gone!”
Crissy had just realized that the bed was unmade, the bathroom a mess
and knew that something had happened to her tough, resilient mom when JR called
from the spare bedroom used as an office.
“Look at this audit letter from the IRS, they want to see the records
for THREE YEARS ago. Where on earth
would those be filed?” he asked his
sister as she ran in from the main bedroom.
“Would they be in the attic?” he
opined as he ran to the hall where the drop-down ladder beckoned from the
ceiling.
“Wouldn’t Dad have heard her calling if she was locked in the
attic?” Crissy asked, then remembered
seeing Dad’s hearing aids on the dresser in the bedroom. They were all so used to him NOT WEARING
them that they just naturally had been hollering in order to communicate with
the frail old man. “NO, I remember Mom
saying last year that she had to move the records from the attic as the bats
had decided to live there!”
“Well, why didn’t she say something to me, I would have sent my pest
man out to chase them out and patch the hole they used for access!” JR fumed.
His parents were so dammed independent he was beyond worrying about them
and only came when a desperate call came, like this morning!! “So where would she have moved them, I will
check the garage, you check the sheds, and the yard for holes; but watch out
for snakes, I remember how frightened you are of those lowly critters!” He
teased.
JRs perusal of the garage made him sad – NO TOOLS! He remembered Mom telling him how his dad
had no need for them and she was afraid that he would decide to take a power
saw to a wall to cut a new doorway or window, hit an electrical wire and kill
himself. So instead he is dying a day
at a time…
Enough of that, JR thought, we have to find Mom, no time to reflect on
the age-old question of “old age!”
Crissy was at his side as he exited the garage with a puzzled look on
her face. “The only place I haven’t
checked is that storage container out back, checked the old chicken house, the
shed they used for a “barn” and the shed by the garden.”
“I had forgotten about that container, they got that twenty years ago
for the STUFF that wouldn’t fit in this “smaller house.” Stuff they couldn’t bear to part with. Collections of this that and the other,
souvenirs of their travels, family heirlooms that we are supposed to treasure
when they pass on!” JR mused. “Would the records of the sale of that 30
acres next door to the neighbor be out there?
It is a water-tight container! OR was twenty years ago, I helped Dad
paint the roof with that special waterproofing paint!” JR said as they trotted
to the container out back. They weren’t
even aware that their Dad was shuffling behind them.
“I am surprised that Mom can even OPEN this thing!” Crissy said as her
brother fussed with the two heavy locking bars and creaked the door open.
“I knew you would find me!” exclaimed their mother, lying on the floor
in a heap of fabric. “It was cold and
dark after the flashlight died, but God was with me. And I didn’t die of the heat OR the cold thanks to this fabric I
was saving for quilts for my great grandchildren!”
“There are my TOOLS,” exclaimed Horace, when he arrived on the scene,
totally ignoring the body that they had all been searching for! “I have to go and tell Sylvia, she said that
they were stolen from the garage.
Sylvia, Sylvia, my tools weren’t stolen, I just forgot where I put
them!” he shouted as he shuffled away!”
His two adult children looked totally lost as they helped their mother
to her feet and half carried her into the kitchen, where she guzzled a glass of
water. “Oh my, how long was I out
there? This house is a mess!”
Horace walked in just then and informed them all, “It was about time
that you came to work!” and huffed back
to the living room where the TV was blaring!
Puzzlement passed from brother to sister but they didn’t say a word
waiting for an explanation from Sylvia, their mother.
“I am so sorry that you had to find us in this way, but I guess that I
should have ‘fessed up about your dad’s condition sooner. I have been covering for him, cleaning for
him, doing anything that needed doing about the place for a long time now. As far as he knows, or admits, I am the “cleaning
lady.”
“He doesn’t even know you are Sylvia?”
JR acknowledged.
“Remember that king-sized bed that he insisted on buying several years
ago? The bed that “ate the
bedroom!” That was the last decision he
made until yesterday when he decided that someone had tried to break into the
storage shed and he had to walk out and close it!” Sylvia explained. “I
tried to holler at him, even knocked on the door after he locked it! He couldn’t hear me or maybe he was so
confused he didn’t understand what he was hearing!”
“Doesn’t it get lonely out here with just the two of you and him “not
all here!?” asked Crissy.
“Yes, and No. You know he does
find “his Crissy” every night in that king-sized bed, and it is better than
being a widow in some ways. Maybe we
need to discuss this situation after I get some food, and clean up this
mess! Sylvia said, taking charge
again! “Oh, and thanks for coming to
our aid!” she said as she hugged her two children and escorted them to the
door.
