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Yesterday, I had mapped out a plan for the afternoon into the evening. I was going to go and get paint to fix the front porch that I had had repainted last year, but then the repair man had set the tanks of termite poison on either side of the porch and left two large drum circles that had eaten off the paint that had now attracted debris and bugs and two circles of yuck. They need to be sanded and repainted. I had picked up Tin and it was raining and when we got to the paint store, the man was very nice and worked with me to get the color that had been discontinued figured out and after awhile he whispered, “Are you okay?” The question that everyone wants to ask, does ask, about the fact that I have no hair.

We had a whispered conversation amongst a busy checkout desk about how four years ago he was in his truck when he was struck by an 18-wheeler and a metal rod had gone straight through neck and chest. He showed me the scar, and then he asked in a lower whisper, “Are you depressed?” “Yes,” I told him. Tin was busying himself taking all of the things he could off a shelf while I was doing this, and the guy said, “My daughter is four, I missed out on three years of her life because I was dealing with the accident, surgery and rehabilitation. I’m 50, and I’m just trying get my life back together but it’s hard. My wife developed the same thing with her hair and thyroid that you have about a year and a half ago. It caused a lot of friction in our marriage.” I nodded my head. “It’s hard,” I said.

We started on our way home armed with my plan which was a friend with children had invited us to her house to play and eat pizza till it was time for us to come home and go to bed. My thoughts were on just get through the rest of the day. But Tin wanted pizza now, and so we went over to Crescent Pie and Sausage to get one. We sat outside and I put Bob Marley on my iPhone so that we could make the most out of the fact that it had started raining and the outer tables were getting wet but it was too cold to sit inside. The typical New Orleans scenario. Then the waiter brought the pizza, only it was burned. And unusual for me, I told him so. He said he would take half off. But Tin took one look at the black outer crust and decided he wouldn’t touch it. I painstakingly removed all the burn and then the waiter came back out and offered to bring me something else, macaroni and cheese or the like. I waved him off. Tin drank all his milk, ate a few pieces of the edge charred copa and we left.

It was raining.

We came home. Along the side yard I had planted ginger, some of it hidden ginger that from the bottom blooms the most delicately beautiful pink blossoms. I also planted hydrangeas, a yesterday, today and tomorrow bush that blooms exquisitely and a pink-leaf philodendron, as well as some beautiful bulbs that had already bloomed in the spring. This path has been my solace after we moved to the back and had to start using the side entrance to enter our home.

When the guys had trimmed back the Queen palms beyond recognition, the sun had entered where shade plants were thriving and put them in shock. But they had finally started to find their groove again, something that I felt I was still struggling with.

We had gone upstairs for me to find my wig and put it on. I’m in my “sick of being bald” mode and so I wanted to do something to cheer myself up. When we came downstairs, the dogs came running and knocked me over to get inside and I could tell that something was wrong, but wasn’t sure what. At some point, I looked down the side yard thinking that maybe in that short period, Loca might have dug to China again and I saw these large palm fronds lying in the side and it looked strange but I couldn’t tell why.

Tin wanted to go inside the front of the house and I let him, even though the house is pristine and clean awaiting our next guests, while I walked to the side yard to see what about the picture wasn’t looking right. The front Queen palm had broken off at the base and fallen in a straight line crushing all the plants underneath along the whole swath of the garden. I tried to move it but couldn’t. I called my neighbor and while he was coming, I went to check on Tin who had pulled all the cushions off the couches and everything out of the drawers and the living room was a huge disaster area.

My neighbor came and said we couldn’t lift it but had to chop it up where it lay and that the plants underneath were already destroyed so that it could just wait till tomorrow. It was raining. I came inside and began picking up the living room and just cried. I text my friend and said we can’t come over, Tin is too wild, and I’m too depressed. Then I set about making him dinner, reading him a book about being adopted, brushing his teeth and put him to bed about an hour and a half later.

I sat on the screen porch as he took everything out of all his drawers and threw it around his room. A very good friend called and said to me, “Of all the people I’ve known in my life, you are solid to the core. If anyone could get through anything it would be you.” She went on to say that things had come easy to her, her house was paid for, she barely had to work and when she did it was work she enjoyed and most of the time she played golf. But that she had watched me all my life work hard, do everything, and that she admired me. I cried again to have a friend who would call at such a time in my life and shore me up. One of the many silver linings in an otherwise very rainy day.

Into everyone’s life, a little rain must fall.

I got in bed later and picked up my Frankl book, he was describing how in the concentration camp, it was those prisoners who could not visualize a tomorrow that perished the quickest. I went to sleep and tried to visualize my tomorrow – Saturday was going to be a long day of figuring out what to do with a 3-year-old hell bent on destruction. On Sunday, we would drive to see my beloved aunt and family, the part of my family who rose to the occasion when my mother was dying and didn’t harass me, but just showed up and supported me. For that, I will always be indebted to her and love her. It’s supposed to rain all weekend but I visualized us in the country on Mother’s Day, my aunt’s expansive garden with all its beautifully tended flowers, lots of cousins for Tin to play with, a delicious feast spread on the counter tops to enjoy, and a place of love to give me shelter from the storm.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 12th, 2012 at 3:24 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.