I had the funniest conversation with my 94-year-old mother today. She loves paperwork of all kinds, and not only scrutinises all the grocery receipts my brother brings home, but keeps them!

I pay all her bills via the internet. She calls me her ‘secretary’, but she keeps a tight control on the paperwork. However, with her memory and eyesight, it’s getting harder and harder for her to find where the payment information lives on the different accounts.

We do our ‘business’, as she calls it, over the telephone, and while I do my best to steer her in the right direction, it’s not that easy for me to help her. I just have to be patient until she finds what she’s looking for, but today, it wasn’t so easy and we both cracked up.

It was hilarious, but somehow, amongst all the laughter we worked it out.

It’s a wonderful thing isn’t it, when we choose to handle our circumstances with the lightness of laughter.

Inara Hawley © 2018