Tag Archives: Friends

The Quiet Supper Club

28 Sunday Jun 2009

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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Last Tuesday I had an urge to see Daddy.  So I broke my fast and fired up the Mini Cooper before I could talk myself out of  the 100 mile round trip between here and Seminole.  

It was one of those needs that make no earthly sense.  I had just seen Dad on Father’s Day two days before.  And I’d already made plans to see Dad two days later.  Earlier in life, with these facts in either hand, I would have dismissed this mysterious urge out of hand, convincing myself it would keep for a couple of days.  But no more.  These days I find life simpler to attend to needs as they arise –even those nagging thoughts that wake me in the middle of the night–rather than let my heart and mind do battle over that which defies reasonable explanation.   

I arrived in time for supper, though no food had yet been served.  As I walked into the dining room and over to the far corner to the only U-shaped feeding table in the room, I found four familiar wheel-chaired occupants waiting patiently for their supper.  All were looking down, until I put my hand on Daddy’s shoulder and leaned down to kiss his cheek.  As his face broke into a smile, so did a few others around the table.    

Daddy shares this table with three women.  Audrey and Marie, in better and younger days, were LPNs.  Miss Alpha, sittng on Daddy’s right, was once the proprietor of a women’s dress shop in Seminole.  Dad sat at his assigned spot, between Marie and Miss Alpha.  The inside of the U was still vacant.  But later, an aide would be there to spoon feed, cut up food and otherwise assist those sitting on the outside of the U.

I’ve learned that the aide is not the only caregiver in permanent residence at the table.  Marie, the former LPN that sits to Daddy’s left, does her best to watch over Daddy.  She and the rest of her dining companions may be people of few words, but still waters do have a way of running deep.  And out of a deep caring for others, Marie misses very little.  Marie surprised me a week ago by telling me that Daddy always eats better when I’m there to help.  I don’t think she shared this to make me feel guilty for the times I’m not there.  It was just her way of  letting me know the nitty gritty truth of Daddy’s life.  

But last night, Daddy ate with such relish and nary a strangle that it caused Marie and I to wonder at the miracle of it all, as a mere week ago it had been just the opposite.  Unbeknownst to Daddy, who was so engrossed in the task of feeding himself, Marie and I caught each others eye and shared this moment of pure joy together.  There was plenty of joy worth sharing, though Miss Alpha wasn’t in the mood to partake.   Being the newest member of this quiet supper club, Miss Alpha is the most withdrawn, and in more ways that just her drawn-in posture.  Her spine is so curved that her head is always bent toward her chest, like a little bird tucked into her feather bed for the night.  

Last Tuesday I wondered if Miss Alpha was grieving a way of life that no longer is.  And I felt a strong desire to let her know that she was welcomed into this quiet supper club.  So I asked Miss Alpha how she was doing–and as best as she could, Miss Alpha raised her head to acknowledge my polite interest–and without any fanfare, said, “I can’t complain.”

I realized in a moment that all the members of the quiet supper club shared a similar bond and sentiment.  None of them complain.  Instead, they bear their diminished bodies and minds with quiet dignity.  And without need for words, they support one another through thick and thin, perhaps with a look of concern across the table or by a quick grasp of two hands waiting to be held by my daddy. 

It strikes me that while these four sit on the outside of the U, it’s the rest of us — the aides and visitors like me–who are the true outsiders.  And I feel honored to be welcomed at their table; which in part, may be be why I whispered a sweet nothing into Daddy’s ear last week when he was strangling on every bite, to let him know that there was no place in the world I’d rather be than there with him. 

With the benefit of hindsight, I see that my urge that made no earthly sense had very little to do with earthly notions.  And though I hadn’t taken a bite, my spur-of-the-moment Tuesday visit left me with the sweetest, lingering sense and foretaste of  heaven.

Mother’s Day

09 Saturday May 2009

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer

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I’m not one to send out Mother’s Day cards. 

Oh, I have and have had the best of intentions.  But even when Mom was alive, I’d expressed my sentiments with flowers rather than Hallmark.  I’d buy a card and forget to send it.  Then it’d keep company with others in my large stockpile of forgotten and unsent cards.  Just the like the one I hold for my dear friend Ann.  I ran across ‘Ann’s’ card a few months ago when selecting a card for another and well… fell in love with it all over again and full of hope and new resolve I thought, this year I’ll get it sent.  But rats, I’ve missed the magical deadline again.  Perhaps next year?  Or maybe next week — with a sheepish smile?

You’d think a CPA who practiced in the tax field for twenty-some years would be able to meet a pesky deadline.  But no, that’s just not who I am, which may be why management took me out of compliance and assigned me to special projects.  I’m rarely on time to any event, even when I give myself cushion and a range.  Just last week I told my brother I’d pick him up between 2:15 and 2:30 and didn’t make it until 2:40 p.m.  Is this a sign of thoughtlessness, or to rob words from St. Paul, “not regarding others as better than myself?”  Perhaps.  Though much of  my lateness and inability to meet deadlines occurs while robbing ‘Peter’ to pay ‘Paul’. 

The way I best manage my flighty behavior is to avoid definite commitments – and by not setting precedents I know I can’t keep up with – like sending out Mother’s Day cards.  I’m helping my daughter Kara today so she and her husband Joe can go to Tulsa and ‘wine and dine’ his mom for Mother’s Day, without worrying about their dogs they needed to leave behind.  Last night, she asked me what time I’d be by for care and feed.  I offered up a big range – 4:00 to 6:00 pm I said – thinking surely, even I can fit into this spacious gap of time.  But what if I’m a little late?  Will the dogs tattle on me?  Will the dogs care?  No, dogs are so doggone forgiving; they never hold a grudge, even when you’ve not met their expectations.

So like the dog I am, I hold no expectations of Mother’s Day dinners or lunches or even cards, though by the grace of God, I’ve been invited to eat brunch with Kara tomorrow morning at my most favorite restaurant in all of OKC – Paseo Grill – which sits just a few blocks north of my Mesta Park home.  Kara is coming to pick me up, and I just love to be chauffeured around.  And if I don’t hear from my other three children…well, let’s just say I understand.  All too well…

Picking up the phone or sending flowers or a card is a lovely thing to do.  But really, can we just banish the official day, for those of us who beat to a different drum, who like to be spontaneous and not hemmed in by a single day?  I know my kids love me, whether or not they acknowledge their love tomorrow.  And I hope the four women in my life who sent me a card know how much I love them too.

To them, and to others like them, I say my heartfelt thanks and cheer you on from the sidelines.  I wish I could be more like you.  At one time, I pretended to be.  And maybe that’s what that card stockpile is all about.  But alas, I am who I am.  Not a thoughtless slug exactly.  But more like one who thinks too much, who expresses herself best in silence and unsent words and thoughts of love, who loves to pick up cards that express words that are true to her spirit, like these that rest on a Patience Brewster card hiding in my stack of unsent cards, but then forgets to send it:

“Through the Silence, I Send a Thousand Prayers…”

Quotidian Laundry

08 Wednesday Apr 2009

Posted by in Good Reads, Life at Home

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My dryer is not working so I’ve turned our upstairs bath into a makeshift dryer.  Everyday I hang a new load of laundry on towel and shower curtain rods, and on the shower head and caddy.  With the sun streaming through the west window, the little room quickly becomes saturated with the lovely scent of clean laundry.

 

As I’ve hung clothes this week, I’ve thought of those old clothes lines that use to be a staple in every backyard, long before backyards became outdoor entertaining spaces.  When we redid our backyard a year ago, we created a small utility area to hold my compost tumbler and two large trash cans.  I expressed hope of making room for a small clothes line as well…. but my husband couldn’t imagine how this would mesh with our landscaping plan. Remembering my granny’s clothes line full of sheets and towels and unmentionables flapping in the wind, I thought it might fit in quite nice, as I am planting a cottage garden rather than one more formal.  

 

My next door neighbor still has one of his vintage clothes line poles.  The big letter ‘T” hangs out near our shared fence and I wonder where its twin has gone.  My daughter Kara’s backyard may also have just one clothes line pole.  I wish I could put one and one together and marry them with wire for use in my own backyard.  Then I could once again sleep on crisp white sheets, bleached by the sun, full of that special scent that can only be described as line-dried sheets.  I fear at least half of North America would not know this smell if it hit them in the face, because unlike me, they’ve never  had the pleasure of being near sheets, anchored by clothes pins, flapping them in the face.  An Oklahoma wind doesn’t always play nice, and rarely does it tumble gently.           

 

These words about laundry remind me of a Kathleen Norris book I read six years ago – “The Quotidian Mysteries – Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work.””  My friend Kathy, who once titled herself, the “diva of the dishwasher,” could write words worth reading if she were so inclined,  like this other Kathy whose book she gave me. 

 

I would like to be a ‘diva of the dryer,’ but the repair shop cannot tell me when my part will be in.  Even in this day of high technology and instant communication, some things remain mysterious.  Is this a quotidian mystery as well?   To answer, I must pull out my partially chewed up Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, which is now a little lighter for the hunk Max took off the corner last Sunday.  And there it is:      

 

“Quotidian:  occurring every day; belonging to every day, commonplace, ordinary.”

 

No wonder I am pulled toward reading this old friend again.  Ms. Norris’ everyday mysteries and my own everyday stories make me think of two clothes poles in two separate yards.  What kind of laundry connects them, if any?  And how in the world could an un-everyday word like quotidian mean everyday?  It is a word worth hanging onto, as I hang our freshly washed laundry on my makeshift clothes lines and wait for the quotidian mystery of a dryer part to show itself.