a day in the life, midlife

Drama in the grocery aisles

Less than 3 weeks ago my mother fell and broke her femur at the joint of her hip. She was on vacation in Switzerland and required surgery.

About a week ago she returned to Canada where my sister and I looked after her.

My sister in the meantime has gone back to Vancouver and I stayed with my mom in the house to help her navigate her injury.

She has crutches and a walker.

She’s progressing well and getting better.

When she told me last night that she wanted to drop off her prescription for some more pain meds herself we agreed to take the trip to the store today.

Her pharmacy is inside a large grocery chain and since we were planning on having the family come over for dinner on the weekend, we decided to shop at the same time.

So I packed her walker into the car and off we went.

I dropped her off at the entrance and went to park the car. She walked slowly to the elevator and we went upstairs. While she made her way from the elevator to the produce section I went to get a cart and started shopping. I saw her lingering behind me every once in awhile… She knows the store better than I do, and went about her business shopping.

The walker has a seat which you can lift and she was able to put a few items into the little basket below. I would detour every once in awhile to pass by her and put her stuff into my cart.

At one point I was done with the produce and went into the grocery aisles. Mom was not far near the dairy section looking at butter and yogurt.

I left her there and went down the very long aisle to pick up various items for the kids to take home with them when I see them on Saturday. Then I went around the corner to come back up the next aisle.

The dairy section was straight ahead and I expected to see mom there.

She wasn’t.

I turned around the corner and looked to see if she followed me down the aisle, but she wasn’t there either.

I looked around the other aisle to see if she followed me there but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

So my eyes glance down the dairy section along the wall to see if maybe she had gone further, toward the freezer section.

The store was not very busy so it’s not like there were crowds of people blocking my line of vision.

Where was she?

Mom was missing. 😳

I’m thinking, it’s been 5 minutes and I already lost her? 😐

I kept picturing she had fallen someplace, or maybe she was sitting on the walker taking a rest…

I started pushing my cart faster, checking each aisle as I passed them to see if I could find her.

Finally I saw her at the very far corner next to the frozen pizza. Her walker was full of stuff and she stood against the glass doors of the freezer section.

Confused, I bemoaned my inability to properly supervise a senior with a serious injury.

How is it I can’t keep up with an injured senior using a walker?

I had one job… 😂

It’s probably a good thing I’m not in charge of toddlers anymore. 😛

33 thoughts on “Drama in the grocery aisles”

  2. I would be like your mother and be running up and down the aisles with my walker. I shouldn’t age myself, but I understand this independence streak and it is wonderful that “momma” has it.
    Great story about real life and it’s your telling of it in your natural and skillful style that makes it live on the page. ❤️

    Liked by 1 person

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  11. Thank god you didn’t report she had fallen. I was having horrible thoughts of ambulances and ER trips and other awful stuff. I’m sure she was tired out, but I bet it felt good to her in many ways to be out and functioning. I know if it was me I would be so grateful.

    Liked by 2 people

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  13. I love this! I’m so glad she’s doing better. My Dad goes “missing” on all of us. We’ll look around and say, “Missing without a trace!”, giggling because we know his hiding spots now. What a precious post! 💛

    Liked by 2 people

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