Unlimited Long Distance For Under Thirty Dollars Poem by Ted Sheridan

I called my mother yesterday
she is eighty two and counting.....by the hour
she currently lives in Florida with my sisters
and they wish she still lived here with me
I remember when we were young kids
mom always said she never wanted to get old
like her mother....
she hated those plastic slip covers
that were on the chair where grandma sat and would pee
mom made me promise that if she ever got to that point
I would put her out of her misery....what does that mean?
I remember grandma...
grandma was a very fast and efficient traveler....
she could be seated in our Virginia living room one minute
and in Ohio visiting with her friends the next....
no jet could do that....
mom finally put grandma in a home
where she died a month later
I remember how much it hurt to see her cry
because she believed she had not been
a good daughter to her mother....
I called mom yesterday....
she asked me if I was a good son....
my silence
was all the answer she felt she needed
before she said she loved me
and asked me where I hid her scissors.....
what does that mean?