The Ants Go Munching One by One

A few weeks before my mother passed away, she called me and asked me to bring number one son over to the house to help me move her color TV out of her den and put a new one in place. She had decided that since Dad was so sick from chemotherapy and spent most of his time in that room, he needed a nice new television to watch his football on. As fate would have it, the one she had in there had just stopped working. She was going to send me to buy another one, since she was stuck at the house with Dad. The old one was so big and heavy that one person couldn't possibly move it out of there.

Anyway, we headed over there in Josh's truck, but didn't end up moving the TV. I had fixed many televisions at school over the previous ten years by simply unplugging them, waiting a few seconds, and plugging them in again. I decided to try that maneuver with Mom's. It worked, so we decided to wait to get a new one when we saw a decent sale. Dad kept saying he didn't want a new TV anyway. Of course, that was what he always said about anything that involved spending money.

I guess Mom didn't want us to think we wasted our time going over to her house. She put us to work doing some other things while we were there. She asked us to get her some plates from the closet in what used to be my bedroom back in the 1970s. Josh and I were stunned by what we found. Mom and Dad had filled the closet from floor to ceiling with cases of foam plates, plastic utensils, and other things like toilet paper. We hauled a few cases from the top and gave Mom what she needed out of them.

Her last request was that we get the mail for her. Josh went out to the mailbox but came back empty handed. He said that it was full of ants. I walked over to it, and sure enough, the entire mailbox was full of ants. They were swarming all over a box wrapped in brown paper. We got the box out somehow and knocked it to the ground. Josh kicked it around the yard a little to get the ants off. Every once in a while we would pick it up, only to get attacked again by more ants coming from under the wrapping. We opened it up and found one of those disposable plastic sandwich boxes full of home-baked cookies. My cousin Jim's wife, Kay, had mailed them to Mom, since Mom and Dad had missed the family reunion because of Dad's illness. Mom loved Kay's cookies. Fortunately the ants didn't make it into the box, and Mom was able to eat the broken remnants.

As long as I live, I will never forget the way Mom laughed about those ants with us that day. It was such a blessing. Dad had gotten so sick from the chemotherapy that we were all pretty much thinking privately that the end was near. Mom was scared, although she never showed it. She was also depressed because their madcap “running all the time” lifestyle had screeched to a halt. Mom felt like she would never get to travel and do the things she loved to do with Dad again. Those ants took all that away, even if it was only for one beautiful moment.