January 5, 2022
Last Monday marked the 59th
anniversary of my father’s death. I was eight and a half years old at the time.
I always think of that as my age then, eight and a half, which is how a child thinks
of their age. Adults don’t say I’m sixty-seven and a half years old.
This tells me that when I
think of my father, and of his death, I’m back there, in the mind of that child
who lost the one parent who would hold her and hug her and tuck her into bed at
night. The one who read her stories and craftily slipped her soda and potato chips
on a night when she snuck from her bed, certain that everyone was having a
party without her. The soda and chips confirmed that long ago four-year-old’s
suspicions.
I remember having a discussion
with one of my supervisors several years ago. He had lost his father as an
adult, and he said that had been the hardest thing he’d ever gone through. Far
worse, he proclaimed, to lose a parent when one was an adult as opposed to when
one was “only a child”.
I didn’t voice my disagreement
with him on that because it wouldn’t have registered with the man. He was one of those arrogant types who
believed that only men truly mattered in life. Yes, there were still some of
those in the early 2000s. Probably still are today, but since I am blessed
enough to work in a solitary profession, I no longer have to deal with any of
them.
I have met some people who’ve
never lost a close family member. I think they’re lucky, in some respects, not
to know that kind of pain. And by the same token, because it is the truth that
all who live must die, I feel sorry for them. They will eventually be
devastated by a loss that will cut them to the bone. That will be a new
experience for them, and maybe in that regard, my former supervisor was
correct.
New experiences are not always
as welcome, the older we become.
We’re currently at the end of
a several days long cold snap here in my neck of the woods. But even more
worrying than that, we, along with just about everyone else on this continent,
are in yet another Covid surge. I’ll tell you one thing and it’s this: when the
infection numbers get high enough (they are 4 times higher here than they were
at their previous all-time high) you rediscover the fear that you first
discovered in the beginning of this pandemic two years ago. And you decide that,
okay, I can stay home, isolate, keep everyone away, if I have to. No problem!
Of course, we know that we’re
relatively safe, because we’ve been vaccinated, and boosted. We know that although
catching the virus is possible, that we’re protected from serious illness and
death by that vaccine. Still, we don’t wish to go through that if we don’t have
to, so we will be careful and just stay the hell home.
David continues to work on his
current renovation project. It’s going slowly, and that’s fine with me. He’s
put a door into the wall that exists between our bathtub and the outside wall
with the window (on the west side of the house). You see, on the other side of
this wall, as one is facing south, is (or I should say was) our bedroom closet.
When all is done, instead of walking forty-five to fifty steps one way from my
bed to the bathroom, I will be able to make the trek in about ten steps.
And looking to the future, the
door is wide enough to accommodate my walker, something that the door from the
front hallway into the bathroom is not.
Of course, the color scheme of
the bathroom is going to be different. Shortly after we moved into this house,
about thirty or so years ago, we painted the bathroom. David and a then
teenaged Jennifer went to pick out the paint. I had wanted a soft, pastel pink.
What we ended up with was a pink so bright that at times I felt I needed to
wear sunglasses just to go pee.
This time, we’re thinking of a
pastel green. The plan is to have tile board from the floor four feet up, all
around the room, and in the shower area, and then paint the color above it. Where
we’re at, today? David is going to be putting the dry wall paint onto the new
drywall and the parts of the walls that used to be pink but are now wearing a
coat of flat white.
He’s still in the process of
looking for that tile board, and of course, with new restrictions in place with
regard to shopping in this province, it may be some time before we get that.
And despite the fact that our preference is for a pastel green on the walls, I
did suggest we wait until we get that board purchased and delivered before
choosing our final color. Because his original suggestion, that we get just a
plain, blinding-white tile board?
My knee-jerk reaction is that’s
not going to fly. I told him that sounded far too institutional looking to me.
We may end up in an institution some day, but until we do, I can see no reason
to live in anticipation of that time yet to come.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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