I’ve lost 15 excess pounds. I’ve gone off anti-depressants. I seem to have quit engaging in “shopping therapy.” I’ve gone back to cooking on a fairly regular basis. I’ve started taking lovely care of my fingernails, even though that means seeing someone every two weeks for professional treatments.
Funny how these things work.
This morning I got up and grabbed the cell phone to clip on my hip as usual. Then I realized that it was not, technically, required this morning. I smiled, because it reminded me that, this morning, two people were free. My father died in the small hours yesterday morning. If there’s any mercy in this universe, he is free of the demons which plagued him all his life. I’m now free to remember the times they didn’t stand between us.
All summer we sat at the table, side by side,
each of us grieving for what might have been
and for what could never be again.
The grief arose from different sources.
His was the grief of youth and mine of age.
It looked like we were wasting time,
playing computer games. They were the distraction
keeping madness at bay.
What is said about that lonesome valley
isn’t always true. We were there together.
He’s going back to war. I dread another grief
of what might have been or what
could never be again.
We’ve been having “the sick” around here since the middle of December. First, it was something that bore a strong resemblance to walking pneumonia. About the time that lifted, husband had to go to Cleveland for yet another funeral and he brought back with him–wait for it–the cold from hell.
As best as I can recall, I haven’t had a continuous run of the cruds lasting this long since sometime in the early 1980s. Wise choice, that. Wish I’d kept with it.
Like all things, both good and bad, this too shall pass. Either that, or I will, but I don’t think that’s very likely. This is the type of thing which comes around every once in a great while to keep me from getting too big for my britches.
Okay, I’m already too big for my britches, but that’s a separate issue. Of course, two of the more annoying side effects of this mess are that I can’t eat and I can’t smoke. Well, I can do a little of each, but I’m enjoying withdrawal on both counts and it’s making me grumpy.
Eh, I think this is the end of the run I’ve been on. Three years of non-stop stress and grief leaves one rather vulnerable to these things. If this is, indeed, the station at the last stop of the drama-llama express, I’ll deal.
Our friends had a female dog who was an australian shepherd mix. Had. Past tense.
Her daddy was moving the truck around on grass–a big diesel thing with double axels in back. She got away from her mama. She ran along the side of the truck until her daddy accelerated to go up a hill. The herding instinct kicked in and she tried to cut it off. Big trucks don’t herd. At least it was mercifully quick.
