August 28, 2008

Too Shocked For Words

When I was diagnosed with hepatitis C, my friend A was the first one at my house.  She walked in the door and threw her arms around me.

When I started treatment for the disease, she heard how nauseated it made me.  One day she drove over with a bag full of Chik-Fil-A and said, “Mel was right– you look like hell.  Get in the bed, and I am going to feed and bathe your boys.”  I did, and she did.

As if that weren’t enough, when I was interviewing doctors to decide to which one would get the honor of slicing me open and rearranging my spine, she came with me to New York to help record the massive amounts of information the surgeons were giving us.  She was so nervous about performing her job correctly that she hid a pocket-sized dictaphone in her coat while we talked with Dr. Farcy, the surgeon who eventually performed my surgery.  He has a thick French accent, and she wanted to be able to capture absolutely everything he had said so that I’d be able to make an informed decision.

When my mom died, she lent me her funeral outfit so I wouldn’t have to wear something of my own and then stare at it in my closet every day.

She’s been a marvelous friend to me.

So when I heard that her husband had collapsed in another state and that she was on her way out there, I got on a plane and followed her. I did the best I could to support her, but when someone dies, especially so suddenly, someone whose jubilant presence is impossible to ignore in life, there’s only so much that humans can do.

A and her husband were blessed with a happy marriage.  He was smitten the first time he saw her, and his adoration of her was evident.  He was all about family.  He and his son spent hours hunting and playing and watching sports.  Theirs was a strong father-son bond with a deep friendship as well.  And his daughter!  Drew spent his entire birthday party one year following her around with a love-drunk expression on his face, and she had that effect on her dad as well.  She’s opinionated, funky and spunky, and though it sounds cliched, she had her daddy wrapped around her finger.  Or even the tiniest bit of fingernail.

Please raise up my friend and her children in your prayers.

August 22, 2008

Texas Ranger: The Rest Of The Story

No one has asked why I’ve written plenty about Feathers lately and nothing at all about Texas Ranger.  For a while TR was part of the family, attending our version of the Grammys and engaging in all the other ornithological activities Porter could create.

All good things must come to an end.  TR wasn’t a particularly pleasant bird, but he, too, met his end.  His dramatic demise is recounted here.  (Click on Texas Ranger’s Last Adventure.) Grab a hankie and a fire extinguisher before reading– you’ll need both.

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Three years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: The Odd Child Out (it’s interesting that this post came up now– I’m now addressing these issues with Porter in a much healthier way and hopefully will feel comfortable writing about it soon.)

August 20, 2008

Gone Too Soon

If you’re human, you’ve experienced suffering.  If you’re religious, you may have felt the way I do sometimes, which is: why the hell is God letting (this disease/this surgery/this death/insert your issue here) happen to me, and why can’t I feel Him enduring this with me, as I believe He promised to do?

(When I’m deep in a pity-party I also wonder why I’m the one having the hard time, when there are so many assholes out there whooping it up, but let’s keep that just between us.)

It’s been a tough week in the Tiny Kingdom.  One friend lost a husband to kidney cancer, another lost her only child to liver cancer.  Obviously, both were taken too soon, in my earthly opinion.

I was at the funeral for my friend’s husband today, and it was so crowded that many of us could not fit into the sanctuary.  (Yes, this honor was reserved for those of us who were arrived a little on the late side.)  We sat in rooms around the church, and the service was piped in.  By sheer accident I sat at a card table in a plain room with old friends.  It was a strangely intimate setting in which to contemplate life and death, and what’s important here and what is not.

The other night I was supervising Porter while he rubbed acne medicine into his face.  “Great,” I said.  “Do it just like that and in a week or so your skin will be all clear.”

“Well, I may not live another week or two,” he said matter-of-factly.  “I could die tomorrow.  You never know.”

“You’re right about that,” I said.  “But if you make it to September and keep putting this on your forehead, I think you’ll be happy with the improvement you see in your skin.”

“I hope I have that long,” he said, and ran to feed Feathers.

For such a wacky kid, Porter is wise in some ways.

I can waste enormous amounts of energy complaining about the state of the boys’ rooms or whether their manners are up to par.  Today I called Bill at work to complain specifically about the “customer support” offered by Linksys, which was neither supportive nor customer-oriented.  I cussed every time I turned a corner in the van, because someone left a golf ball in the back which rolls back and forth maniacally.

I forgot all those things while I sat in the room at the church, contemplating what’s truly important in this world and what is not.

There’s a book I’ve read several times called Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey.  I have to keep reading it because I always forget why this world doesn’t measure up, and why I can’t get caught up in the minutiae.

I ought to take a lesson from Porter, and spend the day doing the equivalent of making balloon hats, anti-girl weapons, and building boats for parakeets, knowing that the beginning of September isn’t promised to me.

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Two years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Still Alive

August 18, 2008

My School Rocks Even More

Finn’s still pumped up about the advantages of the junior high over the elementary school.  It must be that  the lunchroom ladies at the elementary school were ferocious ogres, or maybe those at the junior high moonlight as Playboy centerfolds.  Whatever the reason, Finn is even more impressed with them than he is the huge selection of beverages in the lunchroom.

“I mean, last year those ladies were so mean.  They’d just slap food on your plates and God forbid if you asked them a question.”

“What happens if you ask them a question?” Porter asked.  He eats everything and would never think to ask questions about his food.

“They’d be all like, Every time you come through this line you ask me if there’s cheese on that sandwich.  I don’t know if there is or not.  Now take it or leave it and go sit down.”

“What are your lunch ladies like?” Drew asked.

“Well, they’re much prettier, and I bet if you asked them that, they’d say, Oh, let me put on my plastic gloves so I keep everything extremely sanitary and then they’d lift up the corner of the sandwich and check it out and say, well honey, I see some cheese and it appears to be provolone, and would you care for this sandwich today?”

Finn sat back, reveling in the marvelousness of this, the junior high.

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Three years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: And In The Morning, We’re Making Waffles! (bonus points to those of you who get the movie reference in the title and the text of this post)

August 15, 2008

Just Wondering

Porter: “Mom, how would the world be different if baking soda and vinegar didn’t fizz up when they’re combined?”

I had no answer for this.  Your thoughts are welcome.

By the way, Porter has learned to fashion things out of balloons.  His “Cross-Eyed Training Hat” is pictured above.  He’s looking at the camera in this picture, but if he were actually training himself to be cross-eyed, he’d focus on the orange phallic balloon just in front of him.

He says it takes his average customer (Drew) about 30 seconds to learn to become cross-eyed using his technique.  Look for the Cross Eyed Training Hat in stores by Christmas!

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Three years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Crochety Mom