Helping Hands

My mom could walk up and down the steps a trillion times and she will always not like it one bit and since she has not been in the best of health it is now a trillion times harder for her to want to go up and down the steps. To her it is almost like the fear of the monster under the bed fear. The monster is the steps. She gets anxious and complains about them every time she goes up and down and we always tell her take it one step at a time and she will be fine. So, she holds on to the rail and we hold on to her and down she goes under protest. I know she misses the houses that we lived in with no stairs or very little stairs. Many years ago we lived in a place with a stoop that you had to step up on to get to the porch but the stoop, as I called it, was about 6 or 7 feet from the porch and when you got to the porch you had one step up. I remember when I had my son I lived there with my mom and I was so glad that we didn't have steps. I had to have a c-section and was not looking forward to walking anyway, but not looking forward to walking up any steps and was so glad that I didn't have to. And at that house you really didn't have to walk up the stoop if you didn't want to. You could walk across the grass from the driveway so that was good for everyone who hated stairs. Then at my grandmother's house there was only 3 steps. That is the last place we lived with very little steps. I remember painting those steps with my grandmother one year red, white, and blue. I think that my step grandfather probably hated the colors because the colors didn't last long. Within a month or so the steps were repainted with a greenish yellow color as was the whole outside of the house. My grandmother loved our creativity but my step grandfather not so much. 

So, this morning my mom had to walk the stairs to go out. If she had her way she wouldn't have went out. But, she had to. She has some business to take care of and she couldn't do it in. So, she held on to the rail with one hand, my sister and I held on to her with our hands and my nephew was at the bottom of the steps with his hands. I was thinking it sure takes a lot of hands to get her where she needs to be and that is okay with me. Everyone can use a helping hand sometimes.