a rather odd story that my more woo-woo friends will appreciate
I spent all day today steeling myself to call my mother. Well, no, I taught a class, had a series of meetings with students writing everything from dissertations to crappy first-year papers, etc. etc., as always (I also continued to struggle with Winter Cold #1, which came to visit, and to stay, on Monday and seem to have me quite well in hand at this point). But mostly I worried about calling my mother, because today was my parents' 37th wedding anniversary and while I think a lot about how hard things are for her in general, it's hard to even imagine what it's like to hit this anniversary and have my father so gone.
So, eventually, after many hours of dithering and procrastinating and getting work done that I hadn't even meant to get done, and having promised myself ice cream if it got really bad (ice cream while having a cold is anathema to Russians, but it's the only chocolate in the house not counting Halloween candy, which I've managed not to have opened yet), I finally called my mother to wish her a happy anniversary. To check up on her, on this day. But she picked up the phone all casual and jokey, and it became very obvious very quickly that she didn't know what day it is -- she's been working really hard and is really stressed out and stuff. I decided that I wouldn't bring it up if she didn't bring it up, and we were just chatting...
At some point, I tell her that it snowed this morning in my small town (grrrr, the Frozen Tundra), and she tells me that, while she's in a cold midwestern state herself, somehow an odd thing happened today and one of her roses bloomed. Now, my mom is a dedicated gardener and has a little handkerchief plot out back where she grows roses and herbs and things (in other words, this rose grew on a bush she'd planted, and that's experienced many years of care and love, just not this past year). This spring, summer and fall, she didn't do anything about her flowers because she was mourning the passing of my father, and, she told me, she hasn't had any flowers at all in the house since the memorial service...except today, when she clipped the rose that unexpectedly opened on one of her rosebushes and brought it home and put it in water.
Never mind that earlier today I was in my shrink's office crying because I hadn't planned sufficiently in advance to get her roses on her anniversary, which my father would always bring to her, every year... Isn't this funny? It's almost like he did. So, I told her, and she also thought it was kind of amazing, although I'm really hoping that she didn't get all sad after I got off the phone with her.
You all know that I don't believe any of that woo-woo stuff, so for me to even tell you this story, heck, to even commit it to writing, you know I'm taking it seriously. Jen laughed, though. She said, because I've told her ALL about my father, that the punchline here is actually that Felix, who was the biggest debunker of life-after-death, the most confirmed atheist crankypants in the world, broke down after being dead nine months and did something nice from beyond the grave. It's a joke (of a nice sort) on us all, it is.
Or, you know, a coincidence, or a set of unconscious forces at work. I'm perfectly happy for it to be that.
Strange, huh?
So, eventually, after many hours of dithering and procrastinating and getting work done that I hadn't even meant to get done, and having promised myself ice cream if it got really bad (ice cream while having a cold is anathema to Russians, but it's the only chocolate in the house not counting Halloween candy, which I've managed not to have opened yet), I finally called my mother to wish her a happy anniversary. To check up on her, on this day. But she picked up the phone all casual and jokey, and it became very obvious very quickly that she didn't know what day it is -- she's been working really hard and is really stressed out and stuff. I decided that I wouldn't bring it up if she didn't bring it up, and we were just chatting...
At some point, I tell her that it snowed this morning in my small town (grrrr, the Frozen Tundra), and she tells me that, while she's in a cold midwestern state herself, somehow an odd thing happened today and one of her roses bloomed. Now, my mom is a dedicated gardener and has a little handkerchief plot out back where she grows roses and herbs and things (in other words, this rose grew on a bush she'd planted, and that's experienced many years of care and love, just not this past year). This spring, summer and fall, she didn't do anything about her flowers because she was mourning the passing of my father, and, she told me, she hasn't had any flowers at all in the house since the memorial service...except today, when she clipped the rose that unexpectedly opened on one of her rosebushes and brought it home and put it in water.
Never mind that earlier today I was in my shrink's office crying because I hadn't planned sufficiently in advance to get her roses on her anniversary, which my father would always bring to her, every year... Isn't this funny? It's almost like he did. So, I told her, and she also thought it was kind of amazing, although I'm really hoping that she didn't get all sad after I got off the phone with her.
You all know that I don't believe any of that woo-woo stuff, so for me to even tell you this story, heck, to even commit it to writing, you know I'm taking it seriously. Jen laughed, though. She said, because I've told her ALL about my father, that the punchline here is actually that Felix, who was the biggest debunker of life-after-death, the most confirmed atheist crankypants in the world, broke down after being dead nine months and did something nice from beyond the grave. It's a joke (of a nice sort) on us all, it is.
Or, you know, a coincidence, or a set of unconscious forces at work. I'm perfectly happy for it to be that.
Strange, huh?