Tag: present

Wish Granted

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“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” – Mark Twain

There’s a funny thing about setting intentions, isn’t there? It’s like wishing for a butterfly to land on your finger so you put yourself outside and sit still enough for it to happen. But the next part is the crucial step. Will a butterfly land? Maybe it’ll be a ladybug? Or, yikes, it’s a mosquito. And then the magic comes in whether we are open to any of the above being an answer to the wish.

I had a list of five simple things that I wished for on Christmas day. At least one belly laugh that, in the best case, makes it so you can’t breathe for a split second was one of them.

On Christmas morning, my family came over to open presents with the kids. My mom, brother, sister-in-law, and two friends that are family by choice were sitting in the living room with the kids when I went into the hallway to get a bag for the debris. I heard my 84-year-old mom say, “I’m a non-violent person but I thought this gift looked fun.”

With my curiosity piqued, I popped back in to see four-year-old Mr. D opening the present in question. It was a hat, something like a shower cap, with Velcro on it, and three soft balls. The idea is for one person to wear the hat while other people throw balls at their head.

The laughter and jokes came fast and furious.

“Oh great, Nana,” my friend, Eric said, “teach the little ones to throw balls at people’s heads.”

“Imagine the team of game designers for this product,” my brother said. “The glee they must have had realizing they had a wide-open market for toys that we throw at people’s heads.”

At this point we were all laughing, but especially my mom who was laughing so hard she had tears running down her cheeks.

“Oh look,” my sister-in-law observed, “they mark each area of the head with points. You get 100 if you get one front and center and only 50 if you tag the side.”

My family isn’t immune to the angst that comes with holidays. We don’t all see things the same. And when my dad died suddenly, it created more division. My sister, who is a litigator, sued my brother for a million dollars. They settled but my sister remains largely estranged.

That’s just some of the family wounds we carry and the holes we feel at the holidays. But for that moment, we were right where we belonged. We were howling by the time we finished with unwrapping (and dissecting) this first gift.

Wish fulfilled.

[No children or adults were harmed in the making of this post.]

(featured photo from Pexels)

Here and Now

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“How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and there will never be a time when it is not now.” Gerald Jampolsky

Last weekend as I was planting some new strawberry plants in a planter next to some well-established ones, the 8-year-old girl from next door reached out to gently finger the leaves. “I am going to move before these strawberries come” she said a little wistfully but not too sadly.

As I wrote about in the post The Long Good-bye, our neighbors and my daughter’s best friend are moving to a city 1,200 miles away in 3 months. Every time I see the girl, she says something about moving.

“I want to ride bikes to school again before we move.”

“I think we are going to start packing soon.”

“Eighty-seven days until we move.”

I asked my daughter how her friend feels about moving she says disappointed to be leaving but excited to have a bigger house. Watching this happy and social child talk about her family’s plans, I recall that before this move came to be, the farthest forward time I ever heard her mention was dinner that night.

I know leaving now to imagine what the future might be like is pointless. More than that, every time I give in to worry over the specifics of how it might come to be I feel the drain of energy and faith that pulls at me.

But there is nothing like watching a child leave right now to visit some fuzzy future to illustrate the point. I see her eyes get a little unfocused as she tries to imagine what her days will hold in this vision she has no control over. Then she gives an almost imperceptible shake and returns.

This little girl calls my daughter her soul sister and me her soul mother. Trying not to mother too much, I mentioned that we don’t even know if the strawberries will bear fruit this year but there were some inside right then if they wanted to taste the present.

Foreshadowing

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“Where there is love, there is life.” – Mahatma Gandhi

My dear friend Katie came to pick up her dog and as the kids ran around and showed her how well they took care of the dog she looked at me and said, “I’ll call to update you tomorrow.”

Which was weird because she was standing right in front of me. Update me about what?

Then she called to tell me that her wonderful mom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In an ironic conversation, she said that her mom called to tell Katie that something was going on with her and when Katie gently prompted, “What’s going on, Mom?” She said, “I have something but I can’t remember what the name of it is.” Until Katie’s sister that was sitting next to her mom reminded her it was Alzheimer’s.

Katie was the first person that I called when I found out my dad died in a biking accident so we’ve shared these hard milestones of life before. When I was a senior in high school, I lived with Katie and her family when my parents moved across the state so my dad could take on a new job. Katie’s gentle and loving mom, Connie, shared their family traditions with me, bought me matching socks for Valentine’s Day and helped me get dressed for Prom. Her mom is in many ways my second mom.

As Katie and I cried on the phone, I thought about foreshadowing. Which is great for fiction but seems tortuous in life.

When I visited Katie’s parents this summer, they were doing great. It was clear Connie was losing her memory but especially because of her gracious social skills and the way she and her husband of 60 years work together, it isn’t really noticeable as a problem. Her 82-year-old body is still strong and the love and joy she emanates is as powerful as ever.

So we were crying over the fact that we will lose her and it seems more dire today than it did yesterday because there’s a word attached. And that word brings with it a lot of connotations of loss and sadness before the person dies. All of a sudden we started leaving today to imagine the future.

We did our best to return what’s going on now. Connie went fishing with her husband, daughters and son-in-laws last week and Katie and her daughter are going to visit her next week. Then Katie’s parents are off for a road trip south.

If one of these days Connie doesn’t remember the past, at least we can all be with her in the present instead of borrowing trouble and worrying about the future.