Sundays are for family calls. The first one is at 10:00 PST and includes my mom and her side of the family. At 10:30 it is time for my dad and brother again. The ringer on my computer and phone always go off at the same time, Facebook Messenger calling me to connect.

 

We did not use to call each other weekly. Not at all. I used to talk to my mom in Georgia and my brother in Sweden and aunt and cousin in Los Angeles maybe  3-4 times a year. My dad, also in LA, I spoke to more regularly, perhaps monthly. Occasionally we would skype my brother and his family across the ocean. 

 

But covid changed that. I can’t remember whose idea it was or even how it even started, but it did. The weekly Sunday family calls were born. I now talk weekly to my family and know about all the doctor appointments, dinners, books and movies read and watched, pets passed and pets adopted.

 

There is the usual gentle teasing when my mom holds the phone or ipad with her fingers at the microphone and scratching, rustling sounds ensue. Or when my dad aims his ipad at either the top, left or right side of his head, seldom his whole face and shoulders. Meanwhile my older brother, now 55, plays with the effects on Facetime, alternating from mustaches, animal ears, to alien antennae. Sometimes his daughter, now a young adult joins and I share stories of the crazy antics her father engaged in at her age. To her, he seems so calm, mature, a straight arrow. I tell her of the time he ran away from home, fed our little brother dog food or set the hill on fire. My brother pretends there is suddenly a bad connection and gives me a death stare through the wires and so we move onto some other topic. 

 

Talking to the older generation, I can see my own future. It is full of lots of doctors appointments. Different specialists for different ailments mostly on different days. I have learned that it is probably a good idea to take someone with you to these appointments and definitely a notebook to write down what they say. By the time it gets reported to us on Sunday, it is gobbledygook. It scares me. So I usually go for a long, long walk after I hang up and buy the healthiest groceries I can buy for the week in an attempt to ward off my future.  

 

But for now, you will find me Sundays sitting at my kitchen table, driving somewhere with my husband, or out walking, but plugged in, logged on and with family.