Well my dad died when I was 14 (she was 53) and she was never afraid to do stuff after he died. I mean she was never a person who wanted to go out all that much, but I remember her taking a night class on taxes, driving to places further away from where she would ever dare go now, just wanting to do things. She takes care of her house all on her own and has no problem with that. She is just so scared of technology and it seems like the things that everyone would know how to do, she just gets so flustered with. I was driving to visit relatives with her during my last visit and she wanted to call them letting them know we were close so I told her to take the phone out of my purse and call them. She literally pulled it out and said "Is this it?" Yes, that's a phone! When I was visiting her I had called my sister on my cell and gave the phone to my mom to talk to her afterwards. You can walk around with the cell, but she is so used to her corded 1960s phone that she sat in the chair next to the phone because she probably didn't think she could walk around with it. Then she hands it back to me afterwards saying she doesn't know what button to push to hang up. She doesn't understand computers, although she's never tried to, and will not get one even though it would be so much easier to communicate via email when I want to show her something rather than send a letter. Nope she wants nothing to do with it claiming she wouldn't even know how to turn it on. Well she mastered her remote control after several explanations to her about it.

And I learned when I talked to her on the phone last week that she has never taken a driver's test in her life! She grew up in a rural area and she said at 16 she just drove around with her dad and the town sheriff and then got her license. Has never parallel parked. Has never had to learn the rules of the road, take written tests. So now, after nearly 70 years of driving, if she had to take a written and driving test, I'm sure she would flunk with flying colors...simply just due to her being so nervous and probably not being able to follow the directions of someone because she'd be so freaked out about driving in a place she never goes and so focused on where she is. I mean, she only drives the same routes all the time (church, grocery store, bank), all within 5 miles of her house and would never drive in a new place so in a way I think that test isn't fair to her because they are judging her driving places she would never go.