So, You Want To Go Where?

Anyone who knows my mother knows that she is very supportive of missionaries and missions. Any time a missionary would come to their church in Malakoff, Mom and Dad would make a new commitment to support them. Then, in the 90's, there was a push for nurses to accompany missionaries on short-term trips. Mom went on a trip like this to Mexico with her pastor and his wife (Gaylord & Fredna Brown). So, naturally, when people from her church in Conroe started talking about going on a missions trip to Haiti in November of this year, she wanted to go and the group wanted her to go, too.

Back when Mom went to Mexico with the Browns, it was during a time when a person could present a birth certificate at the border crossing and be OK to pass. In a post-911 world, that is such a thing of the past. She talked to the people who were organizing the trip at her church and they told her to get a passport, get the recommended vaccinations and everything should be fine. Well, yeah, it should be fine. But, when you consider gathering records for an 84 year-old woman, it can be tricky. Only now am I finding out just how tricky it is.

So, Mom tells me that she needs to get a passport. I tell her, "no problem. Do you have a birth certificate?"

"Yes," she says. "I used it when I went to Mexico."

"Perfect." I printed the application off the web, took her to the local Walgreen's to get her photo and went to the courthouse to submit the application. "Do you have your birth certificate?"

"Yes."

"Good." So off we go.

We get to the passport window at the courthouse, present the application, present the method of payment. It's going so well...until I see the birth certificate. It's a photocopy of a really worn looking original dated in 1945.

"Mom, is that the only copy you have of your birth certificate?"

"Yes."

"Oh boy."

The lady at the window gets everything together and explains that we can go ahead and submit the application with the birth certificate we have. The State Department will return the copy with a letter that says the birth certificate is unacceptable and we need to submit an acceptable document in its place. The lady says "it's as simple as that." She gives us the contact info for the courthouse in the county where Mom was born (Red River) and tells me to give them a call.

The next day I called Red River County. They had no record of my mom's birth certificate. "You might try Bowie County" the lady suggests. She was very nice and helpful.

I contact Bowie County, but they have no record, either. The lady I spoke to suggested contacting the Office of Vital Statistics in Austin and gave me the phone number.

I contacted Vital Statistics. The lady there suggests filling out an "Expedited Application." It costs a little more, but I should know something and hear back within 15 days. Their site did point out that birth records up to 70 years old were a bit more uniform and are more readily available than those that are older. It seemed like a safe proposition, even though Mom is 84. She's lived in Texas her entire life. At least , that was what I thought up until today...

We received a package from Vital Statistics. There was a letter from the lady I spoke to a little over a week ago. She said that they could not find a birth certificate for my mom and would need to compile more data to create her a new one. Along with the letter were more forms to fill out.

One of the forms calls for an older relative to fill it out and verify the vital statistics around the person's birth. Unfortunately for Mom, she is the oldest living relative in her family. The rest of the forms pretty much restate everything that was on the original birth certificate application. Great! I'll need to call and talk to the lady again.

If that wasn't enough, I checked Mom's email account and saw that the Department of State had responded to the passport application. As expected, they could not accept her birth certificate and we have up to 90 days to submit one that complies with their standards. We actually have to

It doesn't matter what we do, every little thing with Mom is an adventure. If we can get everything together for this trip, it will be a miracle. But, in her case, maybe a miracle isn't too much to ask.

Just When You Think It's Safe To Go Outside...

It should be no surprise to anyone who knows my mother that she is always meeting people. She has never met a stranger. As she gets older this is getting to be more challenging by the day. Today was one of those days I would have slept through if I had known it was coming...

When she and Dad moved to Conroe nearly 3 1/2 years ago, she went for walks, got lost and ended up getting rides home from perfect strangers. This happened several times and Danelle and I racked our brains about how to handle this problem. Mom was also driving then. She had a few places that she could go comfortably: church and Wal Mart. She got her purse stolen at one point and for the life of her, she could not comprehend that someone had taken her purse from her (it was taken from a shopping cart in the parking lot). To this day, she refers to her purse as being "lost." A few weeks later, she took a spill after driving to her church without her glasses and broke her hip and wrist. That effectively ended her driving adventures but opened up a whole world of escapades on foot.

My family and I are really blessed to be part of a wonderful church, the Vineyard Church of Conroe. We've been part of the church since it started 12 years ago and have lots of friends who live in our neighborhood. Since Mom stopped driving and started walking, our friends would call me all during the day to tell me that they just saw Mom here or there around town.

"Should I give her a ride?" they would ask.
You can ask her. Don't let it hurt your feelings if she says 'no.'"
"Is she OK?"
"Probably. If she's not, she'll let you give her a ride."

I think everyone is pretty well accustomed to seeing Mom around town now. At least I'm not getting the same worried calls anymore. She hasn't said anything about someone from my church stopping to give her a ride home from the store.

A few weeks ago, we had a rare evening at home and saw Mom leaving the house for a walk. She often will go out the gate on the side of the house if she doesn't want us to know what she's up to. About an hour later,  a car we didn't know pulled into our driveway. Mom gets out and introduces us to her new best friend. (Actually, she didn't count as a NEW best friend. Mom knew her from her church. We didn't know her.) Mom had walked about 3 or 4 miles to the local Walgreen's to pick up a prescription and ran into her friend who brought her home. We had to have a talk about that - considering we were at home and she didn't tell us anything. She's going to be 84 this week and she pretty well told us that she could handle herself. What else can we do?

Fast forward to this morning...

Mom mentioned to me yesterday that she met a nice family who had just moved to Conroe from Iowa. They live one street over and she invited them to go to our church.

"Great, Mom! I hope they come."

8 o'clock this morning, the doorbell rings. Everyone in our house is out cold from a late night. Our son, Chris, is in from Denton, so everyone was up late, visiting. My wife and I stagger to answer the door.

"Hello. I'm Don ... Your mom told me you need your trees trimmed away from your house."
"Uh, yeah. I guess so."
"Well, I thought I would come over to give you a bid."
"Sure, go ahead."

He walks around and Mom hasn't even emerged from her apartment. He sees what he needs and says he'll get back with the bid early next week. He shakes my hand and leaves. Mom comes outside.

"Mom, you didn't mention anything about talking to this guy about trimming the trees."
"Oh, yeah. He said he did that kind of work when he was in Iowa."
"Great. It would have been nice to let ME know that you had talked about trimming trees."
"Well, they need to get done."
"Can you just let me know when you talk to somebody about doing work around here?"
"Yes, I can."
"Excellent!"

It's Saturday, the only day I have to get stuff around the house done. My honey-do, gotta do and don't want to do lists are all getting pretty long. I had to get supplies from the local Lowes first. So, I get the stuff and come back. No sooner than I get back, Don shows up. He's got a chainsaw he just bought and a helper with him (Do you follow? Mom had already PAID Don for the work! He bought the chainsaw with some of the money.).

"Do you have a ladder?" Don asks.
"I've got a short step ladder."
"That'll work."

Before I know it, Don and his helper are walking on my roof, cutting down limbs. I'm watching while trying to work on one of my projects. Within a few minutes, the limbs around the house are down and the trees are no longer hanging over the roof. This might not be that bad after all. I just want them off the roof.

Then the helper says "how do I get down?"
"What?!" I said.
Don says "jump off the roof in the grass."
"Can you guys come down the way you went up?" I asked.
"I don't think so," the helper says. "I'm afraid I'll fall."
"Jump" Don says.
"Tell you what, let me go get a bigger ladder." I said

It took a few minutes to get the ladder, but I finally got the guys off the roof. They were saying they would need to come back later because they didn't have a  ladder and would have to borrow one to finish the trees over Mom's apartment. This ladder is a flexible extension ladder, so they could finish the job and get off my property. Finish, they did.

Nearly 5 hours later, the chainsaw is turned off and put away. Piles of limbs and branches are all over my front yard. I asked Don to include some MINOR trimming on our maple tree in our front yard. Somehow there was a lot more that "needed" to be cut than I anticipated. Most of the evening shade is gone - along with the two areas I originally asked to be trimmed. It doesn't look bad, but I'm thinking I'm going to miss that shade as we move on into the summer months.

"Do you have a place where we can put all these limbs until next week?"
"Not really. You've seen how much room I have in the back yard"
"OK, we'll have to haul it off in our car."

They proceed to pile the limbs and branches in the trunk of the car until they've hauled them all away. They must have made half a dozen trips to God knows where to dispose of them. But, at long last the damage is done and I shouldn't have to worry about trimming trees for at least the next 5 years or more.

I know I've spent a couple of hours writing these events out here. It's like therapy for me to allow myself to vent about this. I know at the heart of this matter, Mom saw a need and did her best to fill it. After getting over the shock of seeing my maple tree scalped, I've had time to get used to it. It has grown very fast since we've lived here. Now that it's been pruned like this, it should really come back strong and hopefully that shade will be back soon. And, we did get the trees trimmed around the house and those goofballs didn't fall off my roof. I suppose if Mom hadn't hired them, I would have spent the day mowing, seeding and watering my lawn and doing other types of yard work and wouldn't have such a bizarre story to tell. I'm just glad I can laugh about it now...

So, Happy Mothers' Day, Mom. I can only hope I can give you such a memorable day in return.