toasted

Sometimes, you find that sweet spot. The place where memories past and present collide. It can be bittersweet, but oh what a marvelous feeling. A connection, proof that we go on, threaded together in ways we can't anticipate. This morning was like that for me. A brief moment when I felt so connected to the past that I felt like a bridge between generations.

Maddie stayed over last night. Dunc stayed with the boys at Jim's house next door. This morning I told the kids we were going to have scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. Maddie chirped in "I know how to scramble eggs!" I told her I was glad, that it would be fun to cook breakfast together. We counted heads and realized it was going to take a lot of eggs and bread. The eggs were no problem, a huge skillet fixed that. Maddie helped me break eggs into the bowl, and I finally turned the eggs over to her. She broke, beat and I chunked some butter in a skillet. We discussed adding cheese, decided that was a go, and then I faced the toast. I had a problem. The butter was hard because Jen had put my butter dish in the fridge (we always leave it out to keep it spreadable), and my dilemma was how to get the butter to melt on the toast when it was hard as a rock.

Then I remembered that little Revere pan I had inherited when I got married. Mom had given me the whole set and I had been cooking with them for 46 years. With the set was a little pot, which would hold about 1 cup liquid at most. It had been used for one thing when I was growing up.

Melting butter.

I got it out of the cabinet, added a chunk of butter and melted it, then grabbed a brush out of the drawer. By the time I was ready, Maddie had several slices of toast waiting for butter on a paper plate. I started brushing the butter across the toast, thinking about how Dad used to do the same thing.

I closed my eyed briefly and could see Dad in my mind, standing there smiling at me and his great granddaughter making toast the way he used to when I was her age. The funny thing was, I didn't appreciate that moment back then, but now I savored it. I smiled as I told Maddie the story of Grandpa and the buttered toast.

Memories past, memories present. Threaded together by a small pot and buttered toast.



...life is good... i am @jonesbabie on twitter and Instagram

random acts of kindness

I heard the trembling and tears in her voice as she told me..

"It's cancer, Mom."

I felt like I had been punched in the gut.  I couldn't catch my breath.  It had been almost 14 years since I heard the word cancer from dad.  My mind was racing as Jen went on to tell me the details, and I could feel my shoulders and neck tighten, throbbing with pain.

I knew that our journey as a family had just taken a different path.  When someone you love is diagnosed with cancer, it settles into your brain, invading your waking thoughts every little while, and keeping sleep at bay.  It is like an unwanted guest you can't get to leave.

Jen went on to tell me what the plan of action was.  For me, a nurse, that is always my focus.  What can we do?  What must we do?  This invader, this evil, had to be removed from my child.  My perfect child.  I wanted it GONE.  So I listened, and remained calm, and supportive.  Behaved like a nurse, and tried to push down my emotions, the mother in me.

I have had a hard time writing about this.  That phone call was a couple weeks ago, the surgery a couple weeks before that.  Time passes, we plan another surgery for next month, and deal with things that crop up.  Such as Jen's voice being permanently changed due to scarring on the vocal chord.  And the fact that after each surgery she must be mostly mute for ten days, something that isn't easy with 8 year old twins.

Along the way we have had some laughter.  Such as Duncan telling his mom he didn't want her to leave them (die) because then he wouldn't have a home, and would have to live in a cardboard box on the street.  And Michael telling Jen that with her new, deep voice she could become a famous country singer.

I have to laugh, to keep tears at bay.  To keep the fear at arm's length.  I laugh to keep my mind from racing and going in directions I don't want it to go.  And realizing once again, that sometimes being a nurse is a curse.  Knowledge you can't unlearn can cause more anxiety when someone you love is sick.  As it did when my dad told me almost 14 years ago that he had cancer.  I don't want to know.  I just want to focus on a cure, and helping my child to be well.

And I think about 2 things that have happened recently.  The first was a stop at Starbucks the day after that phone call from Jen, when I had told Steve to get his stuff, we were going to spend the night.  (I had forgotten most of my things, so I had dirty hair and no makeup on when we started back home that morning.)  I was lost in my own thoughts, still in shock and feeling like a zombie.  Then it happened.

A random act of kindness.

The person in front of us paid for our Starbucks.  I have done that many times, but have never been the recipient of "paying it backward".  I was in shock when the barrista told us our tea and coffee was paid for.  I hollered "WHAT?"  and he repeated it.  I leaned around Steve and told him "I've done that before but no one has ever done that for me!  I'm shocked!"  The barrista just smiled and said "well now you have."  As we drove off, I felt overwhelmed.

That person, unknown to him or her, helped me on a day when I was about as low as I have ever been, and had no idea what an impact it made on me, how it raised my spirit.  I thought to myself, we never know what an effect our actions have on others, and how something as small as buying a cup of tea for a stranger, can change a day, and make a smile.  As it did for me that day.

A few days later, dad paid me a visit.  As I walked to my car, I looked down.  Right between my feet, was a message from dad.  I've had several over the years, and he always sends it when I need it the most.

A golf ball.  I knew at that moment that I wasn't alone, and dad still had hold of me...my heart.

Thanks Dad, I needed that.

It will all be all right.







...life is truly good. ~cath
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter

mystic memories

I was busy the other night cleaning out some old files, rearranging my rec room so it would be less of a wreck.  The room serves as my computer room, art room, exercise room (read: mostly unused treadmill in a corner), and office.  I had scored a wonderful filing cabinet with deep drawers at work last week, and was busy emptying some of the baskets and boxes I had filled with my things.

I was listening to music, and just humming along.  Then I found some things from my dad's memorial, back in 2000.  Funny, I thought the memorial was on August 17.  For years that date has been fixed in my mind.  It was August 18.  How odd, I thought.

I was musing about that when Into the Mystic by Van Morrison started to play.  And I remembered a night, almost 7 years ago, when I was staying with Jen after the twins were born.  The twins weren't sleeping, and at 2 AM, we each had a baby in our arms in the living room, and this song was one of the songs we danced to.  As I remembered, I could feel it as though I was there again.

I found the memories swirling in my head as I listened to the music.  Wishing Dad could have seen his four great-grandchildren.  Wishing they could have known him.  I see him in them sometimes, the nuances that go almost undetected.  I see him.  And smile.

Ah, the memories.  Life is sweet...

 

...life is good.~cathfind me @jonesbabie on Twitter