Luna
A very good session with E this evening – a “to do†list – big smile – this is close to my heart – I love to do lists! Meanwhile, left there and ran home to change for a community meeting for Mid City at the Parkway – the place was packed – the bartender was the same human phobe who bartended for N and the Snake’s non wedding (hate that guy) – the whole neighborhood turned out to see what they can do to help this neighborhood get back on its feet – N, Snake and I signed up and are going to pick committees but after leaving we decided on forming our own – bayou clean up committee – all we need are poles with nets and something to put the trash in.
Now home packing and got a missive from my dear, dear cousin S – she writes that my beloved Tia L was diagnosed with cancer late last year – thyroid – caught early so hopefully nipped in the bud, but oh my does it sadden me. My uncle H died so suddenly after retiring a few years ago – a tall strapping Polish Jew who slipped on ice and never recovered – similar to my dad who dropped dead of a massive heart attack in the midst of retirement twenty-one years ago. I have been remiss in communicating with Tia L with all the crap swirling around my life and this is just another casualty of my own myopia. S also writes that her husband E’s mother was diagnosed with renal cancer and her health is declining every day. And the last paragraph is about her daughter L, who was accepted to Oxford. Why is it that life’s joy is always delivered with a dose of sadness?
Thinking about getting ready to leave tomorrow morning – N said you need this trip and I think he’s right (in absence of the obvious we have become even better communicators) – sunshine and my colleagues, who have become a second family to me, will be a haven. I take with me new music, a printout of the desktop pic I thought I put away, and now I bring with me my heavy heart for my Tia L.
I grew up in many countries and cities and often for the summers my sister and I, being the youngest, were left at my grandmother’s here in Franklinton or my aunt’s in New York while my parents traveled. On the dairy farm, S and I washed horses with Prell shampoo, picked blackberries and snapped peas, ran around with watermelons on our head, dug tunnels in the hay, played with mutt puppies and went fishing. In Brooklyn, we played Russian Ten with pink Spalding balls against the sides of apartment buildings, ate Italian ices from the corner, tip toed carefully on the plastic runners Tia laid out on the carpet so nothing got dirty, ate the kibbe, tabouleh, barecas, chick pea salad (our Sepharadic delicacies) – she always took us even though she had her own kids and other responsibilities – always had tons of family she cared for – my grandfather (after he was let out of Cuba), my grandmother, Tio S as he suffered with stomach cancer, Tio V with his illness – a woman who cared for everyone without flinching – oh me. I sent her a thank you letter ten years ago for the care she gave me – the love she always provided – we speak often but not in the last seven months – I remember once we spoke of how all the men in our family died while the next generation boys were barely ready to take their place. So sad.
January 12th, 2006 at 11:05 am
“. . . my sister and I. . .”