April Fool's Day...

April fool’s day is over, it came and went without a sound in our home this year. I thought about it briefly but that is as far as it went. Goodness, I couldn't even come up with a catchy title for this blog entry.The past few months have been such a blur caring for my parents and trying to keep things going for our family. As long as I remember my parents always loved April fool’s day and would always play jokes on each other and all of the kids. One of the first I remember was the morning dad came in from feeding. My brother, sister and I were all eating breakfast and getting ready for school. Dad announces that mom’s horse had just foaled. Mom laughed; replied, "April fools" and went about her business. Dad washed up and sat down and asked if she had seen the colt yet? Mom was just humoring dad as she went to the window. We kids watched as mom's jaw dropped. Her favorite horse had a beautiful colt running around in the pen as she glanced out. I always played some kind of prank on my kids or my mom. Usually the pranks on my mom involved a call in some foreign accent telling her she had won the big prize. Surprisingly enough I found that if I waited a couple of years between these calls she always fell for it. She either forgot or at least played along very well. My favorite April fool’s joke was elaborately planned and flawlessly executed. I started in September. I created a fictitious family or well…some long lost friends. Anyone who knows my parents knows that they seldom ever admit that they don’t know something or someone. The plan was perfect! I wrote them a series of letters over several months including a family Christmas letter complete with all the family drama and of course a darling set of twins. I went on and on in each letter about how I missed seeing them and couldn’t wait till our RV trip would bring us in spring to Missouri so we could stop in to see them. Each letter was then given to my father in law who loves a good prank as well. My father in law travels a lot and mailed each and every letter from a different zip code all over the U.S. The first letters came; mom and dad didn’t mention them. By Christmas they were telling us all about their good friends and all of their travels. This was getting better than I had imagined. It was getting harder and harder to contain my giggles and keep a poker face as February rolled around. Dad was now confiding to a few that he wasn’t sure he remembered these people. Maybe they were mom’s friends, she sure seemed to know them. By March, mom was starting to showing signs of panic as she realized dad couldn’t figure out who they were and they were now on their way to come visit for a week! One day about the last week in March I paid mom a planned visit. I asked her how she knew these people (who were consuming every conversation at this point). They seemed so excited to see her. Mom sat there for a bit very quietly. She leaned across the table and whispered, “Honey, I can’t tell your father. I don’t know who the hell these people are.” Right there the prank had actually hit its high and my adrenaline was over the top. I took a deep breath, collected my poker face and said “Hmmmm…..” Yes, that was the best I could do. Then I told her I would see if I could look them up on the computer for her. She said that would be nice because she didn’t want some strangers just showing up parking in their yard and eating their food! On April 1st at 9am sharp, I called my mom. In one of my best northeastern accents, I told her I was her long lost friend and that we would be there in an hour (of course the phone cut out after this). I dressed the kids showed up at my parents with a box of donuts with a large manila envelope on top. As my parents opened the envelope there was another envelope from their “friends”. Inside it read, “April fools”. My parents talked about this for years and even laughed at many holiday meals with my father in law about his part in this prank to end all pranks. This year was different. I ran my errands. The family was busy. I got home to clean and the pressure washer wouldn’t start. I was tired and decided to go see mom and do some grocery shopping for Easter Sunday. I went out and cut several spring flowers for mom and went to the retirement home. As I entered mom’s room she was sleeping. I gave her a kiss and she reached up to smell the flowers. We talked as I arranged the flowers and watered them. As I sat there my mind wandered to what day it was. I told mom and suggested that we play a joke on someone. She agreed that maybe we should tell her nurses that when I came in she was levitating. I laughed and said sure why not. Then she looked at me very seriously and said no honey we shouldn’t tell them that. What if they believe it? I giggled and she again looked at me and said very seriously “No… if they think I can do that they’ll put me away”. At that I stopped took her hand and agreed to not play our joke. I took note in my heart that last year was the last of an era of family April fool's fun. A bit sad that her mind was not as clear anymore and that she might be forgetting all the fun we'd had in the past; I just read to her for a while. As I was leaving she asked me to take her outside for a bit, it was such a beautiful day. As we rolled past the nurse’s station, someone asked her where she was headed. She promptly answered, "Out to meet up with my old friends in the RV, they’ve been writing to me for months now". I laughed so hard I am sure they all thought mom’s dementia was over the top as we went outside. On the patio area she looked at me, smiled slyly and said, “We sure played a joke on them didn’t we?” Yes mama, we did. Thank you for the April fool’s day smile. Micheline Edwards Copyright 2015 The photos are of my parents in Jan 2015 just before my mom fell and approx 51 years ago when they met and married. .