“Panda, what are you doing with that cane?” I asked, a bit surprised.

Panda looked up, with an expression of deep concentration. “I’m practicing my Vaudeville act,” he replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “You have to have a cane if you’re going to Vaudeville.”

I tried to hide my frustrated expression. “First of all,” I began, “Vaudeville isn’t a place, it’s a theater genre. And where did you get that cane anyway?” Panda’s reply surprised me. “Mom left it on the end of the bed,” he said. “She wanted it close by in case she needed it to get up, but then she didn’t need it after all.”

I looked at the cane more closely. “Wait,” I said, “this is Daddy’s cane. Doesn’t she keep it with her purse on that hook by his hats?”

We only know Daddy from pictures, but we know that toward the end of his life, he needed to use his cane to get around. “Did something happen to Mom?” I continued. “Is that why she was using Daddy’s cane?”

“You didn’t hear her telling Aunt Karen about it on the phone?” Panda asked incredulously. “She slipped on the wet sidewalk at school when it was raining and hurt herself! She landed flat on her right hip. By now probably everyone she knows has heard about it. Aunt Gail said it was blog material.”

I thought for a moment before speaking. “Well, I guess with Mom everything has the potential to be blog material. So what happened exactly?”

Panda pushed the cane aside and began his narrative. “You know those really old black shoes she always used to wear? Well, they had like no tread on the bottom anymore, and she didn’t realize it.” I knew just the ones he meant. “Oh those? Aren’t those the same ones she wore every time she went to chemo last year?”

“That’s right,” Panda said. “She even wore them last December when she got to ring the bell for being done with her chemo treatments. She was really happy about that, too.”

“Wait,” I began. “And they’re the same shoes she always wore to work in the library before she even started chemo?” Panda nodded. “Yep,” he answered. “They weren’t in the best shape back then either.”

“They didn’t look bad in 2021 when she was playing two-square in the driveway with the girls,” I commented, to which Panda replied, “Well, that was probably when they were new. Four years is a long time for a pair of shoes to last, especially when you wear the same ones all the time like Mom does.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” I said. “Did she break anything? Did she go to the doctor?” Panda assured me that she had gone to the doctor, and the X-rays had shown no fractures or dislocations. “Well, I hope she got new shoes,” was all I could say.

“Oh yes, she did,” Panda said. “She ordered them from Amazon. She wears them everywhere she goes now, even to church.” I admit to being a bit surprised. “She doesn’t care that they don’t match her church clothes?” Panda shook his head. “Nope. She doesn’t want to take a chance of anything like that happening again. She says church isn’t a fashion show anyway.”

“While she was waiting in line to pick up her extra, super strong, prescription Ibuprofen, she took a picture of her new shoes and her cane,” Panda continued. “Her hip was hurting her and causing her to have back pain for about three weeks. But it’s lots better now. Plus, Aunt Karen told her to eat lots of vegetables to lessen the inflammation.”

“And she actually did it?” I asked. “That’s a first!” Panda nodded in agreement. “Yeah, she said it was hurting so much if she had to eat more vegetables it would be worth it. She even put green beans in her cream of mushroom soup, and she said it was pretty good.”

“I suppose she cut back on eating the World’s Finest Chocolate bars she bought from the kids for the Christian school fundraiser?” I ventured. “I’m pretty sure Aunt Karen told her sugar is bad for inflammation.” Panda fidgeted for a minute before answering. “Um, well. . . let’s just say she added a lot of vegetables to her pasta,” he replied.

Panda took the opportunity to change the subject. “Mom is really good about keeping track of things that she feels are important. She even kept track of how much her back and hip were hurting every day. She used these little emojis in her notebook. Now she doesn’t have to keep track because it hardly hurts at all anymore.”

“So, Panda,” I said, once I felt assured that Mom was much better and everything was fine now. “How is it that you knew all this information and I didn’t?” Panda looked thoughtful. At first it seemed like he didn’t know how to answer. Then he said, “Well, do you know how many hours cats sleep per day?”

“Actually, I do,” I replied. “And I think it’s time we took another nap.”