Lessons
For years my mother had a lift chair because it was very difficult for her to get up by herself.
She loved her chair except for the fact that the controls were on her left side when she was sitting in it.
She used to say that the chair she picked in the store had right-handed controls so they must have delivered the wrong chair.
My dad insisted that they had delivered the right chair.
It was a real sore spot with her.
She had a lot of pain in her left hand (arthritis maybe?), so much so that my sister Sue made her a fleece mitten for that hand to keep it warm while she slept, which helped.
Once when I was home, I stood in the kitchen staring at the chair wondering if there was a way to move the controls to the other side.
I lifted up the skirt in the back of the chair and I didn’t see anything obvious so I put it back. By then I could hear mom’s walker squeaking so I knew she was on her way back to her chair.
I clearly remember deciding not to pursue it any further, justifying my choice by telling myself that if it could be fixed, my dad or brother would have done it already.
Years later, after both my parents had passed away, I got custody of the chair. By then, my husband was using a lift chair too and I thought it couldn’t hurt to have a spare.
Several months after I brought the chair home, my husband’s chair died on us. My son and I got my mother’s trusty chair out of the storage building and brought it in.
While we were setting it up, we discovered that you could put the controls on either side before connecting the back of the chair.
My heart sank.
How long had my mother suffered with the aggravation of the left-handed controls? That had been her chair for years, and I could have done something about it.
Had I only asked if anyone else had tried to change it.
Or looked more closely.
Or found out where they bought it and called to see if they could tell me what to do.
There’s nothing I can do about it now, and it hurts my heart that I didn’t look in to it further and fix it for her.
It was so easy to just agree that it was a less than ideal situation and go on about my business.
It’s not the easiest thing to do, but I try to keep all this in mind when someone complains.
My mom’s been gone quite a few years, and she’s still teaching me lessons.
I wish I’d learned this one sooner. 🙁
~~~
Join our community
Subscribe to get our latest content by email.
I feel God put the controls on the left for a reason. This way mom would only get up when she really needed to 😉 That saved a lot of freaking out for all of us…Oh Mema 🙂
You may be right! I just felt so bad when I discovered that I could have done something. But maybe it was just not meant to be. Thanks for that, it makes me feel a little better! ❤️❤️❤️
Awe! This is sweet. I on the other hand would have laughed about it. I think bc it would be a funny memory to me :).
It gave her something to bicker about 🙂
I guess there is nothing to do but learn from it and move forward. Maybe down the road, we’ll have a good laugh…
Grace made a good point. They say hind sight is 20/20, but really it’s not. Every decision (or in my case, non-decision) has consequences. And each of those alters the circumstances yet to come. Who knows what might have come to be?
Who indeed!
Hey. I am behind on emails. I just read your garden and morning time spent outside which I loved. I am sure by now your garden is blossoming and that first tomato has come in by now. Sweet story about the lift chair. My family can relate. Mama had one also for many years. She hated it and called it a necessary evil. Her control was on the right side but with her arthritic hands she could barely control the buttons. But in the end, fussing and pain and all, both of our moms needed that necessary evil called the lift chair. I hope they have improved them over the years. Love you girl.
Michael has a lift chair and he loves it. It also has heat and massage. He uses the heat occasionally when his arthritis is bad or his leg/hip hurts a lot. I’m very thankful that our mothers don’t need those chairs anymore…there is no pain in heaven!
I think Memas hand problem was the fact that her hand went thru the ringer when she was young. Yes the old wringer washer. now-a-days she could have sued and we could have grown up rich, instead of good looking !!!!