My dad turns 90 today. I went home to celebrate his birthday this past weekend. While I was looking forward to the trip for that, I was apprehensive because it also meant having to deal with telling my mother what happened back in March. Oddly enough, she took it pretty well, and she agreed that it was better that I had waited to see her face to face rather than try to tell her over the phone.

On the last day of my visit, our conversation turned towards what I actually do on Tuesday nights, how we all prepare food and bring it to the park to serve to the homeless who show up. I also went into why I felt it was important that I continue to do this even after my attack. What happened next caught me completely unprepared; my mom left the room, came back with $200 in cash and told me that she wanted to support what we do, and since we pay for everything out of our own pockets, she wanted to donate some money to defray our expenses. Beyond the initial surprise, this was to me very unusual because my typical experience is that I am left wondering if my mother even understood what I said. So this was more like a double or triple blessing. I imagine that I'll chew on this for a while.