My sister Stefanie called me last night to tell me that mom had fallen again while making dinner, breaking her right wrist. Apparently her hip and legs are fine, but is was another frustrating setback for her - she was passionately involved in planting a new vegetable garden, had been working part-time as a literacy coach, and had regained much of her confidence. I was, ironically, editing the sequence that chronicled her last fall, and sketching out a voiceover that recounted the realizations I had then. This new information was a kind of test, in that I had a fresh emotional response to compare with my claims about my response to the previous fall. Not sure if that makes sense. I wasn't blindsided by this news, and I wasn't blindsided by the rush of emotions that I experienced (immediately wondering if she'd been drinking, for example). I like to think I had some of the calm that my parents approach these matters with, and that was encouraging.

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