Same kind of different
Looking up from People magazine my mother-in-law said, “I should have brought my flip phone.”
A copy of Midwest Living laid in my lap. I had paged through, looked at a recipe for make your own limoncello ice cream, and was now among the throng of phone scrollers in the waiting room.
With a tinge of shame I said, “I receive a lot of email newsletters. I like to read them in the morning.”
My eighty-year-old mother-in-law is very curious.
”Like what?” she asked.
I told her about Storycorp, which is new to my inbox, just added yesterday.
I told her about Jay who started an ataxia support group.
I told her about Mark who throws down some challenging thought provokers.
I told her about Seth who just wrote about how many hours we waste on our devices.
She was interested and….I could feel her shrinking beside me.
“I don’t have deep thoughts,” she said. “I kind of bob along at the surface. My concerns center around breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dad.”
“Do you think that’s true?” I asked. “You’ve shared some pretty deep thoughts with me about what you hear on talk radio.”
“Yeah, I suppose. I just believe that we need to keep things smooth and so I don’t say too much.”
She went on to tell me about a movie she recently watched with a group at church—Same Kind of Different as Me.
With a bit of hesitancy, like when you set your chin on the optometrists machine and they blow a puff of air into your eye, I told my very Catholic companion about The Two Popes.
We didn’t go too deep.
We tested the waters.
“Francis’ ideas are a bit radical,” she said.
And then they called her back for her procedure…..