Today is a wet, wet day in New York City. We don’t need the rain, but the rest of the country does. This is what happens when you mess with Nature. Nature messes right back.
We did a drive-by to visit DOB (father of blogger) and had brunch. The usual comfort food: bagels, nova scotia salmon, cream cheese. Of course, because POB (partner of blogger) did the food run, there was no matjes herring or white fish salad. Really? There wouldn’t have been enough food had I not held back. This, in my mother’s (may-she-rest-in-peace-her-memory-be-for-a-blessing) house? Ok, so I do a self-serving calculation and determine that most people Mom and Dad knew are dead so there is no one to talk about the fact that there wasn’t enough food. But if these people are Heaven, do they know and is Mom embarrassed? Exhaustion sets in just from the emotional and tribal toll this takes on me. I have just enough energy to text SOB (sister of blogger) who is on call at the hospital “Drive-by successful, taking nap.” I get a text back, “strong work.” Nothing like elder sister approval, in the absence of my mother. I am happy, if hungry.
I should not have given the task to POB. When we started to date, her parents had to buy more food because I would gnaw at the antique table. If there were left-overs, her mother instructed that they be passed to me so I could Hoover it up. POB has come a long way. She has food crises (what if an army comes knocking?) but sometimes she forgets about the joys of matjes herring (no cream sauce) and white fish salad. I love her and frankly I don’t need so much of the comfort food since it occludes the arteries, however, deliciously.
Then, there are those rainy day tasks we have all planned, like scan photos into the family archive. I look at some, and then sigh. Rainy days, with their poetic sorrow, only magnify my feelings when looking at long dead family members when they were young, strong and undefeated. I remember them this way. Not the later pictures when time and disease did their violence. I can’t look anymore. Nope, going through family photos is NOT a rainy day activity.
I need to hug and kiss my child. Will he remember POB and me as strong and solid? Or will later pictures of when we are frail form his lasting memory? I guess, as long as he remembers the love, it’s ok.