Tonight starts my fifth week as a WiDeaux. My sister Julie Skyped me this afternoon and we talked for a long while. I've used Skype since it first came out, and I've always loved it. The first time I used it was amazing. It was like the science fiction shows and cartoons we watched as kids--The Jetsons springs to mind--where you can see the person and hear them at the same time. Now, if only we'd get flying cars!
The first of my family members to adopt Skype was my dad. He's always been techno-savvy. Julie's always living in some far-flung place, so she was a fairly early Skyper, too. My mother, though, was very technophobic. Every time I called her, I'd tell her how cool it was to see Julie, or what great thing I'd found that week on the Internet. She simply didn't see the need for any of that stuff--the telephone was just fine, thank you.
Then, a little over a year ago, she was in the hospital. Again. Todd was in town, and was on his way to visit her. I asked him to bring along his laptop so I could Skype Mama. When she finally realized what I had been talking about all that time, she got excited. Next thing I knew, she got a "Skype Machine." It was actually a laptop, but she used it almost exclusively to Skype.
Once she learned Skype, she didn't want to talk on the phone anymore. "I want to see you," she'd say. The strange technology was suddenly a blessing, because she could visit with her widespread family without having to leave her house. She virtually visited as often as she wanted. She enjoyed telling Trinity stories about when we girls were little, she talked to Joey and Corey and caught up on their news, and she Skyped me to see how Bunny and I were doing.
As he became increasingly more housebound, Bunny began to really appreciate Skype, as well. Before Joey and his family moved down here, he could chat them up without leaving the living room. If I was having a Skype session with someone, he'd chime in until I turned the screen to him. The person he most liked to talk to, though, was Mama.
He got down in the mouth fairly often, and he knew I wasn't going to facilitate any gloominess. I couldn't--if I had, he'd have taken a downward spiral long before he did, and he'd have dragged me along with him. He would reach out to Mama, initially seeking to send some whine her way. Before long, they'd start trying to out-do each other with their physical ailments. By the end of their Skype sessions, he'd gotten over his self-pity and was in good spirits.
Last week, as I held Mama's hand in her final earth-bound moments, I told her all the things on my mind and in my heart. At one point, I asked her to give Bunny a big hug and a kiss for me. Then I said, "He'll probably meet you right at the gate so he can show you around. And he's probably driven everybody up there nuts with all his chattering, so they're all gonna be glad to see you."
I shared that story with Julie today, and she agreed that Bunny was probably the one who came to "meet her with the flashlight." I know it sounds strange, but in a way, I am comforted by my mother's passing. Now she and Bunny can talk each other's ears off, free of any of the physical restrictions they had down here.
Now he really is in heaven.
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