First, let me say thank you.

Thank you to the readers who have joined the party and followed my weekly column. If you’ve been reading for a while, then you already know my mom.

Mary Scales.

Also known as Penny.
Grandma Penny.
Sister Penny.
Aunt Penny.
And a few other names depending on who’s talking and what she’s done lately.

About a month ago, during the ice storm, Mom took a fall. One wrong step on frozen ground and suddenly she was headed to the emergency room. From there she was transferred to the hospital over in Clemmons, where she had surgery for two broken bones in her ankle.

She’s passed the eighty-year mark and, for a great-grandma of a certain age, she’s doing pretty well overall. Still sharp. Still opinionated. Still very much herself.

We were gathered around her hospital room visiting and hovering—because that’s what happens when the kids become the adults and the adults become the ones we worry about.

At some point Mom said, very plainly,

“I would like some of that elderberry cough syrup I take.”

Now in our family there are two camps.

There’s the camp that checks charts. Blood pressure. Diabetes. Sugar levels. What did the nurse say? What does the doctor think?

Then there’s the other camp.

That camp consists of my brothers—Barry, Reginald, Phil—and me.

We have a long-standing family philosophy: Mom has made it this far. If she wants fried
chicken, a hot dog, a sugary drink, or a handful of pork skins, we are not about to stand between her and happiness.

When she mentioned the cough syrup, the other camp sprang into action.

“Can you have that?”
“What did the nurses say?”
“What about your sugar levels?”

Mom listened politely, then did what she has done for most of her life when she’s already made up her mind.

She called my niece Tiffany and asked her to bring it.

Now Tiffany is firmly planted in the responsible camp. She shut that request down before it ever got out of the parking lot.

That’s when the undercover brothers went to work.

I stepped into the hallway and made a call. One of my brothers—also a member of the good-time camp—took it.

Let’s just say Operation Purple Drink was officially underway.

I won’t go into operational details. No need to leave fingerprints.

But I will say this—we learned from the best.

Papa Joe was handing our son Joey a chicken drumstick long before the experts said babies should be eating solid food.

Joey survived.

Mom did too.

Sometimes love looks like checking charts and asking questions.

And sometimes love looks like quietly making sure an eighty-plus-year-old woman gets the elderberry cough syrup she asked for.

Now for a quick update.

Since that night in the hospital, Mom spent twenty-two days in skilled care recovering. As of this week she has been home for about a week, sporting a cast that runs nearly up to her knee.

She starts in-home therapy Monday, which should be interesting for everyone involved— especially the therapist.

The good news is she’s back where she wants to be: at home, with her cell phone close by.

So if you happen to have her number, give her a call. She’d enjoy hearing from you.
Just don’t ask too many questions about purple drinks.

Some family operations are better left classified.

At least, that’s how I remember it.

As Best As I Remember It.