Hello there! I know the title of this one is a little odd. You shall see why it is titled this! I’m already giggling as I write the title.

God has been so good to our family, and I want to share a little bit about our journey as we have moved our Meme into an assisted living this past February. This is my dad’s mom. We lost PawPaw (Hal Abernethy) here on Earth back in 2016, and she’s been doing so well living on her own these past few years. Due to a need, it was time to provide more help then we could all pitch in and give her together at home. My dad and his siblings found the perfect place for her! We are so thankful for it and the staff that works so diligently to care for the residents there. I am blessed with the time to be able to see her every weekday morning. I have also been able to get to know the awesome folks who work there and live there. Win-WIN!

June Abernethy is her name. I was born on her birthday, August 24, and was her first grandkid out of 9 total. The Abernethy Clan has been close over the years. I’m so thankful for my mom’s side of the family as well as my dad’s side. There is more to come about all of this soon! I always joke that I have the “Meme Gene”. This gene entails the love of nice things, nails, jewelry, perfume and a special knack of how to interact with others. I am so thankful for both sides of my family and how I have been molded and shaped to be who I am becoming.

I get a lot of my sense of adventure from my mom though, and a way of just getting into things. If you know me, you know what I am talking about! It makes me shake my head sometimes of the situations I find myself in. I ask myself, “HOW the heck am I even here??” But one thing I do and do often is laugh at myself. I invite you all to laugh with me!

On the subject of birds in particular: Meme has always loved looking at the birds as they do their thing. She always loved watching them at her house when she lived there. I recently got her a birdfeeder and put it right outside her window at this new place so she could watch them. Well, guess what? The silly birds didn’t show up right away to eat their food like I thought they would. She kept telling me every morning how she’s been watching for them. Bless! I started to pray and ask God to bring them so she could enjoy His creation. I also heard recently from a friend who said that when she sees a red cardinal in particular, she is reminded of how the Holy Spirit is always with her and is speaking to her. I absolutely loved that! So, as a bonus — I asked the Lord for cardinals, too! Why not? Why don’t we ask God for those specific things? I know I am guilty of not always thinking they’re significant enough, but everything is meaningful to Him.

Monday morning, as soon as I walked in Meme’s room at her new place, she leaned forward to give me “sugar” (kisses for you non-Southern folks!) and I hugged her. She glanced over toward the window and said, “WELL, SHELL! Lookie there! There are birds in that birdfeeder!” I looked over excitedly and lo and behold — there were birds! Not just any birds though. You guessed it, there were cardinals! A bright red male and a beautiful, bright-beaked female. So amazing! I told her God really heard our prayers! She shook her head and said, “God really does answer prayer, doesn’t He?” We’ve seen them every day this week. So many different types, too. They are eating through the seed! Meme gets excited when she sees the space on the top of how far down the seed has gotten, meaning they are going to town on that food.

On the subject of phone calls. There are many other residents who live in this facility as well, and I’ve been so happy to get to know some of them! There is one in particular who just won my heart over the very first time I met her. We’ll call her Elsie. I walked in her room to see how she was doing about a month ago or so, and I could sense she was pretty down in the dumps. I pulled up a chair and just listened to her. She was facing the fact her children were looking at selling her house, and she was emotional about all of it. She said she couldn’t get her cellphone to work to call her son about something with the contract, so I offered to make the calls from my phone. She read off some numbers from a paper with her chicken-scratch handwriting, and I kept dialing wrong numbers. She couldn’t read her handwriting, and I probably messed some up too. Hahaha! She finally got a hold of her daughter-in-law, and that was that. She did leave messages, and I knew I’d probably get calls back after I left the facility. Sure enough! I had a call come through, and I answered it.

“Hello? I got a call from this number…who is this?”

“Oh YES! Hello! Thank you so much for calling me back. I was helping Elsie make some phone calls. This is her son, correct?”

*silence*

“No…I know her but I’m not her son. My name is Kevin. I am confused about this, but I’ll just let it go. Sorry I can’t help you.”

I started to laugh, but he hung up. “Okie dokie”, I whispered to myself as I drove down the road. The next day when I got there, I went to her room and told her about the strange call. She laughed and shook her head and said, “Oh honey! No, no…you called my therapist! Kevin is my therapist, silly!” Making it sound like I intentionally dialed him. I busted out laughing and just shook my head. She continued, “…and he’s a really nice looking man and just a sweetheart. You’re really nice and nice looking, too. I know you both have families and are married, but it would be a good match!” Hahahaha! I am laughing just writing this out. I love Elsie. We have had incredible conversations, and she is one prayer warrior! I always ask elderly folks for prayer when I am able to and they offer. They are a different generation for sure, let me tell you.

On the subject of wheelchairs. This is my favorite one! Meme’s room is a small hike from the dining room area with a few longer halls to walk. There are usually some stragglers in the hall trying to push themselves in their wheelchairs. Meme uses a walker, so my hands are generally free (other than carrying my giant 30oz coffee mug!). I usually always offer to help push someone to wherever their destination is. Sometimes people don’t want the help and they say, “Nah honey, I’m just cruisin’.” I told Meme it’s like picking up hitchhikers!

One particular morning, I offered to push the most adorable little lady’s chair for her. She said yes, and reached up with her super shaky hands as she offered to hold my huge coffee cup for me. Bless! I told her I could manage both. I didn’t want my coffee ending up all over her and me. As we were heading down the hall, we stopped to chat with the maintenance man. He was interacting with the sweet lady and Meme too, and we were all laughing about something. I started to push the chair again as I was trying balancing my mug under my arm.

All of the sudden, this sweet lady went flying up in the air and the maintenance man said “YIKES!” I realized I had just ran over his foot! He laughed it off, and she looked up at me and said, “Well HONEY…you’ve got to look where you’re going.” Obviously I can’t say I can successfully balance a coffee mug, push/steer a wheelchair and avoid feet at the same time. Go figure.

Meme and I laughed and laughed about that for days after. It’s these kinds of things that just make my world go round. I don’t know how, but I always manage to find myself in these types of situations. Absolutely hilarious.

I have more stories — they are always happening! I’ll be sure to mix some of the entertaining fun in with everything else I write about, too. Be blessed!! Shalom!