Pride Goeth Before a Laugh

by Dean Kramer

March, 2008

My mom is getting on in years. She lives about 2 & 1/2 hours from Cripple Creek, but it really isn’t safe for her to drive that distance. Twink and I could go to her house in New Jersey and spend the weekend with her except we have animals that we can’t easily leave.

So every other month or so my sister and brother-in-law drive Mom to a restaurant half-way between their homes in southern Jersey and ours at Cripple Creek and we all enjoy a family gathering and lunch.

Among my mom’s current difficulties are poor balance and a chronically painful foot injury necessitating the use of a cane or a walker. I use a walker almost always, but Mom prefers a cane as it makes her look less disabled and is also less to haul around. Thus, to some extent we share mobility issues.

My sister and her husband shepherd Mom to and from the restaurant, watching carefully in case she should lose her balance and need a helpful arm to steady her. Though with my walker I am unlikely to need assistance, Twink always keeps an eye out for my safety.

My family has seen the effects of MS on me range from very obvious and limiting in the past to my current state of relative strength and stability. We’ve all been delighted with the improvements diet and exercise have afforded me. My current medications also seem to be having a positive influence. In fact, I would say that at this point, for the most part, MS has minimal impact of my life.

So last month as Twink and I drove to the restaurant to meet the rest of the family, I was feeling chipper, a little smug, and perhaps even somewhat cocky because of how well I was doing.

I used my walker to get into the restaurant. My mom used her cane. My brother-in-law and I ordered our usual burgers, Twink had a crab cake, and my sister and my mom had barbecued ribs. Together we spent an enjoyable time talking over future vacation plans and catching up on family news. Soon, though, lunch was over and it was time to head home.

The restaurant sits up high overlooking a major river and has a convenient ramp from the door down to the sidewalk. So down the ramp we paraded, Mom first, gimping along with her cane, I next, clutching and releasing the brakes on my walker, and the rest of them strolling down the incline behind us.

We reached the safety of the flat sidewalk and began our farewells. My mom is a great one for kisses and she took me by the shoulders and pulled me toward her for a good-bye peck on the lips.

As she did so I noticed a smear of barbecue sauce at the side of her mouth. “Eewww!” ( I thought to myself). I love my mom, but I don’t love barbecue sauce, particularly in that context.

I flinched slightly and lost my balance. Before she could actually plant one on me I began to sway. I staggered a couple of feet to her left. I staggered back in front of her and then a couple of feet to her right. All the while she was trying mightily to haul me in for a kiss. I twirled very slowly in a circle, and then lost my balance completely. As I began to fall I reached for my mom but quickly realized that an 81-year-old lady with a cane is probably not an option for stability.

So I pulled my hands back, reached for my walker, and fell on my back on the sidewalk. The walker fell, too. And then, so it shouldn’t be a total loss, my mom’s cane clattered to the ground and she, unbalanced by her attempts to grab me, fell on top of me, finally rolling onto her back on the sidewalk.

So there we both lay, on our backs on the sidewalk on a sunny afternoon in February in a little tourist town on the Susquehanna River. I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. My mind replayed the visuals and I laughed. My mom began laughing too for the same reason, I’m sure. We lay there and looked up at my sister, my brother-in-law, and Twink. They had such looks of horror on their faces. It made Mom and I laugh some more.

Some poor citizen had seen us fall and, from a distance, he came hustling over to offer help. “Do you ladies need help?” He asked. But my mom and I were too far-gone to do anything but laugh even harder.

“Noooo,” we cackled, “we’re fine!” and, of course, saying that while lying on your backs on the sidewalk with overturned mobility equipment scattered hither and yon. Well, it seemed funny, so we laughed harder still.

He looked at the standing members of the family and they looked back at him and shrugged helplessly. “If they say they’re fine, I guess they are,” said my brother-in-law. The poor man took flight at that point. From his perspective there were two cripples lying on the sidewalk laughing and three able-bodied people letting them lay there. He looked frightened as he scuttled away which made Mom and I laugh even more than we already were. We were, by then, literally shrieking with laughter; laughter, which, in the clear, still air, echoed off the stone walls and concrete sidewalks of the town.

Finally we were ready to get up and were helped to our feet. Neither of us (amazingly, in my mom’s case) was injured. My family left for New Jersey. Twink and I headed home to Cripple Creek, I, fortunate in my choice of incontinence product. It prevented what could have been a cold, wet ride home.