"Get 'um over here"

Yesterday right after lunch I went to visit mom.  I figured I could catch her right before her nap, and I did.  Right as I was turning into her room, I heard her talking, and let's just say it was in a rather spirited tone.  Naturally, no one was there, but her TV was on.  Not sure what she was all agitated about but boy, howdy, she was.  I sat down on the bed with her, she recognized me, and her previous conversation ended.

She was groaning off and on, so I asked her if she was in pain.  She said she wasn't, but that "she hadn't been well in awhile".  (Understatement).  Then she told me "heart attack..had one".  At this point, I am sucking my gums to keep from laughing.  Mom has not had a heart attack --or at least one I know about--and as any goofball knows, you don't laugh when somebody tells you that.  Even if it's an imaginary heart attack.  I told her how sorry I was to hear that...yada..yada...yada.  Then I told her about an incident that had occurred over the weekend.  How a certain person who was old enough to know better, had acted extremely inappropriately about something that was none of his business.  This person tried to rake me over the coals, at a party no less, and I had stopped him dead in his tracks.  (No, it wasn't Bruce.)

Mom's next response slayed me.  She told me to "get 'um over here.. I'm gonna punch 'um".  With that, I went to pieces.  She and I laughed and laughed, and then she said it AGAIN, only this time she was SERIOUS.  And pissed.  It just goes to show you.  Once a mother, always a mother.

Before I left, I looked down at one of her hands lying outside of her bed covers.  It was cold as ice, almost transparent, so I held it between mine to warm it up.  I could see almost all of the bones and blood vessels.  Once it was warmer, I tried to tuck it underneath, but she wasn't willing to do that.  I guess she needed it out in case she decides to punch somebody.