Today marks one month since Mom's hip replacement surgery. She's now been home from rehab for two weeks, and I can report that she's made remarkable progress already. She's doing more for herself every day, and yesterday for the first time she walked farther than the end of her hallway.

In fact, she took the elevator (twice) down to the lobby and walked to the activity room. She has many friends in her building, and for most of the people she encountered this was the first time they'd seen her since her fall on May 4. It was quite an emotional reunion, for them and for me.

Mom is not quite ready to be on her own yet, as much as she would like to be, so Suzanne and I are still taking turns spending the night. We have help from time to time during the day, but we are getting a lot out of spending so much time with her. We want her to be independent again, and she's incredibly optimistic about that, considering what she's gone through. We're getting there.

She puts it differently. Mom says she wants to give us our lives back. We don't really look at it that way, even though I for one generally thrive on mundane routine. This has been an adventure, and in fact the whole healing process is our lives, or a big and important part of them, for as long as necessary. No equivocation, no complaints.

There's no timetable, no target date. We're still playing it week by week. It's good to see progress, more for her sake than ours, really.

So let's be clear. This isn't a complaint. But in spite of getting up way too early on the mornings after I spend the night at Mom's, I am in no danger of turning into a morning person. Still, today I got home at 8:20 am and put in a full, normal Monday. I'm having no trouble getting all my work done, thanks to a flexible schedule and tolerant boss. He's been totally supportive so far, and I'm sure as long as bills keep getting paid and paperwork processed, that will continue. It makes me grateful, and a little bit humble.