Keepin Up With the Jones'

I love the title of this group. My mother is now a Jones, so there is a lot of keeping up to do.

Two years after my mother became a widow, she was talking about dying in the next year and a half. (when she would be my father's age when he died) So many people were dying around her that it just seemed natural. She didn't seem depressed, but she wasn't interested in much. Living way out in the country didn't help.

She did attend some Baptist activities for seniors and went on a trip with an old friend for a new roommate since her last roommate was one of the people who had died. There was a man on the trip who had often visited my father and mother even after my father was quite sick and not himself. He introduced my mother to his roommate, a widower. Mother met her Jones on that trip.

They met at another senior citizen event and he began to call and take her to church events. To do this he was travelling about 45 minutes to pick her up and go back from 30-45 minutes to get to the event. And then again to go home. Soon he proposed, but my mother resisted since her 3 older sisters all had Alzheimer's before they died. This man had nursed his dying wife for 5 years and she didn't want him to go through that again.

But her wonderful Mr. Jones convinced her that she should live her life to the fullest instead of worrying about what might happen. So just before her 79th birthday, my mother got engaged. I'll tell the story of the wedding some other time. I tell people they haven't lived until their 79 year old mother gets married.

So now, my happy mother is Mrs. Jones. They travel somewhere every month to 6 weeks, They just got back this week from a trip to Nashville, Tennessee that my mother said was even more fun than she expected. She's looking forward to their next trip in January. They've both kept their houses, and spend a week at a time at each. That's twice the decorating, stocking, cleaning and maintenance, so both Joneses keep busy.

Keeping up with the Jones? I have enough trouble figuring out where to call them!