Small and frail

I think the first time I thought me Mom might be getting sick was one day at the Hollywood Casino south of Toledo, Ohio. This was about two years after me Pops had went home.

I had to demonstrate a drain snake for the casino maintenance staff and she had always liked playing the slots. As she had not been to a casino since Dad passed away I figured I'd take her along. She would surely be entertained by the one armed bandits for the hour or hour and a half the demo would take. It would be a good diversion for her too.

The demo took a bit over an hour as expected. I took the unit I had just displayed out to my van and went back into the casino to find Mom. Yet instead of holding court at a slot machine (I expected it would take me a half hour just to find her as she liked to hunt for 'paying' machines), I spotted her right inside the entrance. She was sitting on a chair over against a wall, looking rather lonely and small. "I figured you'd still be playing," I remarked as I approached.

"Oh, I got bored so I thought I'd just sit here and wait for you."

"How long you been waiting?" I asked.

"About forty five minutes," she answered. That was most of the time I'd been occupied.

Admittedly a bit shocked I said, "I'm sorry, Mom, I didn't mean to leave you so long."

"Oh that's okay," she responded, sounding kind of like a 'don't worry about me' Mom. "You had work to do." It actually occurred to me right then and there that something might be wrong, but I quickly dismissed it as, well, she'd always went to casinos with Dad and it just wasn't the same without him being around.

And maybe that was all there was to it. But she looked so small and frail...