Theme Week #3

I sat down at the island in the kitchen for a break.  Dinner was bubbling merrily on the stove, newly washed dishes dripped in the drainer, and the oven was heating for the dinner rolls - this was my break before the rush and confusion of getting dinner on the table and wrestling the kids to eat it. 

Sitting at my laptop, perusing facebook for oh-so-important updates in my friends lives, I get an instant message,  "Hello?  Are you there?"  It's my mom, typing from Africa.  I wonder what they think of facebook in Africa?

As soon as I begin typing my reply, the phone rings.

"Hello?.....Hello, is someone there?"  The phone has been wierd lately, or the telemarketers are  hesitant to talk to me since I went off on one last week. 

I hear a crakling noise just as I begin to reach for the disconnect button, so I wait to see if someone answers.

"Hi there [static], can you hear me?"  It took me a minute to figure out the voice disguised under the static and echos.  How was Mom calling me from Africa?

"Mom!  How are you doing?  Gosh, how are you calling me?  Did you leave Tepa early or did someone finally get cell reception where you are at?"  Machine gunning questions at her, I know, but I hadn't talked to her in  over a week or so except for facebook.  Usually we talk on the phone every coupld of days.

"[static] on the computer, something called scype.... lag time between when I talk and you answer... hear me ok?"  This is the first time I have heard her voice since she went over to Ghana, and I was a bit overwhelmed for some reason.  Here I am sitting her old house, the one that we bought from her because I was in love with it, sitting right underneath the hanging pot rack that she found at an estate auction, missing her terribly all of a sudden.

"Yes I can hear you ok, can you hear me?"

Silence

"I miss you a lot.  I really liked your blog about market day.."

"Yes I can hear you.  How are the babies?

I was so glad to hear her voice, but it was becoming apparent that this conversation was going to be a lot of work on both of our ends.  Neither one of us could figure out whose turn it was to talk with the delay between here and Africa.

I took the initiative to catch her up to date in one big blurb so then she could tell me all of her stuff.  "The kids are great, we all love reading what you are doing.  Branden got 4th in cross country, Derek has a job interview next week, and I get to go to Miranda and Colby's open house tonight.  Hubby and I are good too, but we both have a cold.  So we have to take turns passing the box of tissues back and forth all night, it's driving both of us crazy."

I could almost picture the words traveling over the ocean to reach her.  I waited, knowing that she was probably just now hearing what I had said.  Glancing at my laptop screen, I see that she is typing to me on facebook again.  I watch the little icon blink while holding the phone to my ear just in case.

"Sorry, it disconnected.  I'm not real sure how to fix it since this computer is a Mac"

I hang up the phone with a little ache in my heart.  I should have let her talk instead of me telling her all that stuff.  Slowly typing out my response about how glad I was to hear from her and how cool it was that she was able to call through the computer, I wished that she was home.  I wished that I could pick up the phone and call her back just to hear her voice.

"tell branden and derek that im proud of them.  make sure you take a picture at open house so i can see it and dont let hubby hog all the tissues, make him use toilet paper instead, lol.  i have to go, its late here and we have an early morning.  i will try to be on here tomorrow about the same time.  kisses to all of you"  and then she signed off.

I got up and put the phone on the charger.  I glance at dinner again, figuring it was about time to set the table.  Instead of heading to the plate rack, I drag a chair over to the sink so that I can climb on it to reach the small cabinet there.  I pull out the "holiday plates" the ones that we use for Thanksgiving and other fancy-dinner holidays, and start rinsing them off and carefully drying them.

"Why do you have Nana's dishes out?  We aren't using them tonight are we?"  My oldest son looks at me curiously, apparently wondering if it's some holiday he forgot about.

"Yes we are.  I just thought that maybe using these plates tonight would be kinda like having Nana with us for dinner."