There are Gifts.
I’m spending more and more of my time these days helping my dad (who is 93) take care of my mom (who is 90 and has dementia). It’s not fun. But I don’t mind.
There are gifts. Such as running across this old photo, taken of them on their wedding day — May 16, 1948.
I think they must still look like this to each other.
How lovely is that!
Happy Birthday, Mom
My mom is 90 today. This is her, in the picture my dad keeps on his desk. I’m not sure when it was taken. Maybe when they got married. (She was 18. He was 20. They’ve been married 72 years.)
The smaller photo behind it is also of her, shortly after my sister was born. (The little girl, looking on, is me!) And tucked in with that photo, cut out and pasted on, is another one of her, standing behind me and one of my brothers at my college graduation.
Things change, don’t they.
But love lives on.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
It’s Good to Go Slow
I went to the orthopedic surgeon today to try to get a sense of what I will need in terms of a support network when I have to get my arthritic knee(s) replaced. (My house only has one bathroom and it’s on the second floor.)
The bad news is that, yes, both knees are worse than they were the last time I visited the surgeon (a year-and-a-half ago), and yes, we’re pretty much down to bone-on-bone (not to mention the hideous meniscus!).
But the good news is that the knee(s) are not SO bad that I have to have surgery done right away, or even that it has to be done any time soon! There are still pain meds that can help. (So far I’ve only been taking over-the-counter NSAIDs.) And if the new meds don’t help, there are shots I can get that could offer relief for as much as 6 months at a time. (I hate shots, but I hate being cut up a whole lot more.)
Of course, I’m sure I could find another surgeon who would we happy to go right ahead and do the surgery — NOW. But I’m really kind of loving that I’ve got a surgeon who’s not really in a hurry to do surgery!
Also, that he and my brother were roommates in med school. When the surgeon realized who I was, he told me he had a picture at home of him and my brother together, posing like like they were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (my brother looked/looks just like Robert Redford!), so I feel like I’m getting the best “this-is-what-I-would-do-for-my-own-sister” kind of treatment.
Not Just Tonight
In honor of today’s 50th anniversary of our landing on the moon and in appreciation for my father, whose work in developing an equation to describe orbital ellipses was used in the guidance and control systems of the Apollo 11 space craft (he was — literally — a rocket scientist), I offer this haiku by Ihara Saikaku:
Villages may lack
sea bream or flowers
but they all have
tonight’s moon.
***
I’m proud of you, Dad.
What a Wonderful World!
Someone — I don’t know who — shoveled my sidewalk.
And not only my sidewalk, but the steps from my house to the sidewalk–two sets–and then a path from the sidewalk to the street where I park my car, plus a little pathway AROUND my car, so I could get into it without getting my shoes and socks full of snow!
I have no idea who it was. I don’t even know when they did it.
My usual way of dealing with snow is to stay inside and wait till it melts. Which I did yesterday until about dinnertime, when I just couldn’t face the left-overs I had in the frig, so I put on my coat and went out to see how bad the streets were. (I live in the city and they don’t plow the snow.)
And lo and behold…..my steps, my sidewalk, and all around my car was shoveled clean and clear.
I was so happy I wanted to run out and kiss whoever had done it. Or at least shake their hand. Or bow to them, or something. But nobody was around. Nobody. I thought about going up and down the street, knocking on everyone’s door, asking if they had done it and saying how wonderful it was. But then I thought that might freak somebody out, since I don’t even know everyone on my block. So I settled for sending texts to the neighbors I knew. (None of them said they had done it!)
So I just want to say: I am thrilled to be living in such a wonderful world where people sometimes do stuff like that.
And I have resolved to do stuff like that too.