Sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to write up Byron’s TV listings today. I wish I had someone to do it for me, so I could enjoy a laugh or two, but that’s a no-go.
Grief has overcome me today. I knew it would. At least I didn’t break down and cry during physical therapy this morning.
Maybe I’ll be able to post a critter video by suppertime. Maybe tomorrow we can hear from Byron. We’ll see.
Physical therapy, first thing. A late breakfast. Compose, write, and submit a column for Newswithviews. Research and write some blog posts.
Now it’s 3:00 and I am worn out. Patty’s been working hard all day, too, purging our paperwork and neatening the living room.
We have to pause now and then because we’ve lost Robbie and we miss her. I keep expecting to see her in all her usual places.
We would love another cat or two, but our own ages make it a little dicey. Never mind. Patty’s daughter has our back. If anything happens to us, she’ll adopt our pets: and we have learned to trust her promises. Thank you, Georgia. That was what we needed to hear.
We were all set to rush Robbie off to the vet’s again this morning, but then Patty changed her mind and canceled. What was the point? We had a solid week of veterinary care, and nothing got any better.
This poor cat. We don’t want to keep stressing her out. There was much too much of that during the week. I see that now. We wish we’d seen it sooner.
She’s totally stopped eating, and it doesn’t look good.
Any prayers you have for us will be appreciated.
I just can’t do any more nooze today.
This song–You Are My Sunshine, sung by Gene Autry–is one of my earliest memories. My daddy used to sing it to me when I was a toddler and had a nightmare. He’d pick me up and rock me in his arms until I was calm enough to go back to sleep. Sometimes he’d sing Sweet Violets, but I’m already close to tears and prefer not to go any closer.
Some of those nights, he’d have to get what sleep he could because his shift at the Ford Motor plant began at 6 a.m. But that didn’t stop him from comforting his children when we needed it.
Robbie in her younger days
We had a scare here this morning: our cat, Robbie (18 years old) had a sudden seizure or spasm, I don’t know which, in the living room. No, this wasn’t nice! But it has happened once before, and lasted only a few minutes once I could comfort her; and that’s what happened this time.
Some weeks ago she had blood tests, X-rays, the whole kaboodle–and no bad news out of any of them. So we don’t know what’s what.
Meanwhile, there’s my leg and hip and Patty’s COPD: our little household needs prayer and plenty of it.
Everything’s quieted down now. Back to work.
Requested by Susan: Family Bible, by Willie Nelson.
How this brings it back to me! my mother and my aunts singing or humming hymns as they went about their housework. That seed was planted very deeply; and it doesn’t take much to make it bloom again.
After Sunday school, after Sunday dinner, the various households of our family would visit with each other. That would be five families who lived close enough together to make regular visits easy.
This essay was going to be a Memory Lane for the Sunday color comics. The families got different Sunday papers, so my childhood appetite for comics had much to feed on.
Mandrake the Magician. Flash Gordon. Prince Valiant. (Yeah, I liked the series best.) And my favorite, Kevin the Bold. Anybody out there remember him? Globe-trotting Irish adventurer in the days of Henry VIII. When Kevin wound up in Japan, that blew me away. He also made it to the Roanoke Colony and the Philippines.
*Sigh* Where is everybody? Either died or moved far, far away. No more Sunday get-togethers: nobody left to get together with. Kevin the Bold himself never made it past 1968.
We keep on trucking, fueled only by God’s promises. And by sweet memories.
Ours looks like this–very nice.
Robbie, our cat, gave us a bad scare yesterday, just before suppertime. Neither of us suggested rushing her to the emergency vet’s; last time we did that, we wound up with a dead cat. And that wound is still raw.
So we did our best to take care of her here, and by and by she got back to normal. For which we give God thanks. As for today, so far, so good.
And it’s snowing, snowing like mad. We didn’t get any snow last winter, and only a little bit so far this year; but this is the real deal. I want to sit back and enjoy it. Tomorrow will be time enough to dig our cars out. Too bad we don’t have any teenagers in the neighborhood who’d do it for us if we paid them for it.
I want to share some personal Christmas memories with you, in hope that they’ll inspire equally fond memories of yours.
*Grammie, in her 90s, effortlessly kneeling on the floor to open presents, and just as effortlessly rising up again. Man, did she have healthy knees!
*Sitting in Uncle Bernie’s lap as he read me A Christmas Carol. He didn’t have much lap room, but I was just a little child at the time. He had enough room for me.
*My father setting up and decorating the tree on Christmas Eve, after packing us kids off to bed. He always did the whole job in one night. No matter how early I came downstairs on Christmas Day, everything was there.
*Aunt Millie donning a Santa Claus mask to give out presents.
*The whole family, over a dozen of us crammed into Grandpa’s tiny living room, laughing uproariously as we played Mad Libs.
*Playing our new Clue game with my cousins, Joanne and Christopher, under their family’s Christmas tree.
I could go on and on, but you get the point by now.
Merry Christmas, everyone–and may this year’s Christmas spirit work for us all throughout the coming year.
I dunno: maybe it’s the weather, grey and dreary rain all week. Maybe it’s the red-and-green Christmas stocking she gave us years ago, now displayed on the entrance to our kitchen. All I know is, I’m missing Aunt Betty today.
My family is half-Catholic, half-Protestant. Betty, my mother’s second-oldest sister–there were six daughters–was a teaching nun at a school in Pennsylvania. When I was a little boy, her old-fashioned black-and-white nun’s habit used to make me uneasy. I once told her that the present I wanted most in the world was a woolly mammoth (I didn’t understand that there were no mammoths anymore). So she made one for me, cut out of an old fur coat. It wasn’t the real thing, but it cured my uneasiness.
I had a lot of growing up to do before I learned to appreciate her kindness, her wit, and her scholarship: she knew her Greek and Roman classics. And then she died; and now I miss her. So many wonderful conversations we could have had! But I do miss my mother and her sisters. They’ve all passed on.
Appreciate your loved ones now. While you can still tell them so.