They use them.
“Melody needs to lift up her countenance,” Natasha said matter-of-factly this morning.
Melody’s current M.O. is to dissolve in cries and screams when she’s scolded for misbehavior. It’s gotten real old really fast.
~~~
I made sure I used the same phrase on Natasha the next time I had occasion to. I don’t want her to think she’s… better than her sister, as if Melody needs to do something she (Natasha) doesn’t.
Oh, and we have a 2-year-old who speaks in complete sentences. How often does that happen? I really don’t know, but it seems unique.
I mentioned this to mom and she said, “It only counts if she can be understood.”
“It can be understood,” I said. “Sarah’s the one who told the story.”
“Antee-tarah, my ponytayol come out. Can oo fih it, peas?” [Tell me that’s not the cutest thing you ever heard.] “Tank-oo.”
~~~
Yesterday Rae Ann came over and cleaned my house while I worked on the longer Obit for tonight’s memorial service. While I was working it out the phone rang and it was one of those political telemarketing calls (can something be exponentialy annoying?); Concerned Alaskans for something or other was calling.
“Mrs. Helmericks, did you know that at this moment in the State Legislature–”
“Did you know,” I interrupted with a voice not-quite-steady, “that at this moment I am writing my grandmother’s obituary, and this is not a good time.”
A gratifying amount of awkwardness ensued.
~~~
Last week Natasha came up to me while I was sitting in our big blue chair and asked in her gentle voice, “Mama, do you ever forgive me?” After a Do I ever! laugh, I answered, “Yes, I’ve forgiven you lots of times.”
She embraced my arm tenderly and said sincerely, “I forgive you lots of times too.”
~~~
Today I had Jay drop me off at the DMV to renew my months-expired driver’s license. I wanted to be dropped off in case I was asked (with my 4-months expired license) how I’d gotten there.
When I called to ask Jay to pick me up he said something (over our poor cell-phone connection) that sounded like “oven door came off.” I could hear the stress in his voice.
“You can’t be serious!” I said.
“I am, and I’m on my way,” he said.
As soon as I was in the car I pumped him for the story. It seems Natasha had left one of her shoes in the kitchen, and Jay, stepping back as he checked on a pizza in the oven, felt it under his foot. He thought he’d stepped on Maestro or Melody and immediately picked up the foot again. His weight had already shifted, and so he hung on to the door, trying to catch his balance– and found himself holding a 400-degree door, looking at a half-baked pizza in the open oven.
Thankfully, the door wasn’t actually broken; it’s designed to lift straight up once opened, and the angle Jay pulled it at just lifted it straight out. Discovering this it was easy enough to fix, but didn’t entirely remove the panting moment of adrenaline.
The song I sung when I was alone with Grandma for the last time.
You are so good in your mercy
Taking what I cannot bear
Taking a heart that was wounded
And making it beautiful, beyond compare
(chorus)
And what the locust have eaten
My Lord can restore
And what the enemy’s taken
My Lord gives me more
And my Jesus will mend my heart
When my heart’s torn.
There’s nothing that my Jesus cannot restore.
You are so good in your mercy
You take all I don’t understand.
Taking a life that was wounded and broken
and bearing it up by your hand
(chorus)
(The way I sing Dennis Jernigan’s song)
That’s what Grandma said Friday when Mom told her she (Gma) probably has cancer in her blood.
The doctor has sent her bone-marrow samples off to a different lab to see why the cancer didn’t show up in the earlier test, and to confirm this diagnosis. (This is my understanding of things).
Doctor Carroll has said that if anyone wants to see her again they should make travel plans now, because this is a very fast-acting cancer. Mom has been tight-lipped about an actual time-frame, saying diagnosis kills as many people as diseases. She’s told Grandma that if she lives another six years people can come back then, but we want to be ready for anything, so we’re telling folks to come now. Only she doesn’t think it will be six years. She very concerned about the “dying from diagnosis” phynomenon.
Gma’s ready to go on living, and having a (more) finite life-span before her really is disappointing to her. She enjoys life.
I was very disappointed too. I had hoped that something about the hospital environment was oppressing her, holding her back. Because then taking her home would “fix” her. Now we’re told there’s nothing that will, and we are reduce to waiting and watching. And “comfort-measures.”
How do I watch my (2nd) best-friend die? I just do. Figure it out as I go along.
I’ve heard of “wedding crashers” before; yes, even before the movie. I’d never thought to apply the term to anybody who shows up uninvited to a party. The “crashers” part.
I was at a 10th anniversary celebration Friday night. That’s where this story comes from. Apparently (before I arrived) there was this barefoot guy wandering around the pavilion/gazebo thing, and nobody knew who he was. Bride asked various friends who he was/here with, and nobody knew.
Finally one of them went independently to the young man and asked, “May I introduce you to the bride and groom?”
I love it.
When the 10-years-married bride approached him herself he looked at her a little funny (she was wearing a tiara of small flowers, but her dress was a simple sundress). “Are you the bride?” he asked, hesitantly.
“Yes,” she said, almost as surprised to be addressed that way. “Yes I am.”
“Nobody knew who he was,” she told me later. “I was just going over to introduce myself.”
He left shortly afterwards. I have to wonder if he was full or had been shamed into leaving. And I’ll have to remember that line about “introducing.” Good stuff, that.
Do we consider (I wonder) the way we’re training our mind/will/emotions in our daily responses to things?
Earlier this week an (older) friend was describing to me how her mother’s dementia was worsening. This friend described how hard it was getting to shift her mother’s focus off the negative (real and imagined) of her own world. Continue reading