Thinking on these things . . .

I was walking out of Caribou Coffee with my Heath Bar Frappaccino , and the girl said, “Have a nice day!” I couldn’t help but recognize the irony. I’d just come from meeting with the pastor to plan my mom’s funeral service and was on my way home to finish up the last things before heading over to the visitation. So when she said this common pleasantry, it made me wonder: What would you say if I told you what I was doing today? And if you knew, would you still wish me a nice day? But then I thought, what makes a day a “nice” day? Is it a day that is easy? Pleasurable? Happy? Trouble-free? What constitutes a “nice day”? If a day is filled with love and laughter and peace, would that make it a nice day? This day has been filled with love as family and friends have come to share their sympathy for us and their admiration for my mom, and many tears have glistened in the eyes of those who will miss her, because she was loved. There has been laughter as stories have flowed about good times pe...

I found out today that a friend is moving - soon and far away: far enough way that any contact will be electronically and probably eventually reduced to the exchanging of Christmas cards. Loss is numbing - I guess that's the beauty of shock, it allows you to go on doing all that your day demands as your heart assimilates little by little what has happened. As this fact cuts into my heart, I've started thinking about the ramifications of this to my future as I recall how important what is now lost, has been to my past. Clinically there are stages of grief - I've read them, worked through them with the deaths of in - laws and a parent. This isn't death but it's still grief. Like the loss of a job, or health, or a house to fire, or a car in an accident, or all the things we just assume will never change, it shakes us when suddenly what has been the norm, isn't. I'm remembering occasions that I didn't know it would be the last time, and consequently planning...

It's a hot, middle-of-the-summer kind of day. I am at the laundromat - oh joy. Part of the reason I am there is that it's a hot summer day, and everything will be able to dry on the clothesline before the sun sets. This is also a bad idea, because a laundromat is not the place you want to be when it's stifling. So I wrestle my basket into the car and head home, and pulling up I realize that I don't have any additional clotheslines. It had been the last thing I'd said to my husband two hours ago when I was leaving - please, make sure the lines are up when I get back. People are more easily irritated when it's hot - did you know that? "They" just did a big study on it as reported on the ten o'clock news - what a surprise... I am not a happy camper. I hang up a few things and leave the basket with the rest and head into my room, the only room with air conditioning. I reach for my journal and start writing out my frustrations. As I recount how I am bot...