13: Fishing for Comments
1. I recently drove by my brother Jimmy’s house here in Hull (He died in 2001.), admiring the landscaping in his front yard and wondering which shrubs were the ones he planted the spring before he died. There was no forewarning of his death, but Jim had a fatalistic personality and I remember him telling me about the shrubs and saying, “I don’t even know why I’m planting them.”
2. On father’s Day morning I discovered a magnet photo of my dad had fallen off the fridge and onto the kitchen floor. I picked it up carried it around in my pocket all day.
3. Grief is like a wound bleeding out. If you close it up too quickly, it’s more prone to infection.
4. I washed my mother’s hair for the first time today, remembering all the times she washed mine when I was a child and how much I complained that she was hurting me because she scrubbed so hard.
5. While taking pictures of unaware people walking the beach I began to wonder if shooting someone from behind with the camera is cowardly, the way shooting someone in the back is.
6. Shutter Island (filmed in part on Peddocks Island, about a mile from the house I grew up in) was such a spooky thriller that they could have named it Shudder Island.
7. Now I feel right at home. It’s a week and a half into my stay with my mother and I’ve already ruined one tea kettle and burned one pan.
8. Those who know me know I have what I call “stove dyslexia” (turning the wrong burners on and cooking empty pans). I even owned up to not being a “wifely find” and to burning pots for the love of poetry in my wedding vows.
9. Notable Quotable: treating poems like lego. but ouch, mustn’t scatter on the floor. ~ Pearl Pirie.
10. Church sign posted on Facebook: Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet him.
11. Out of the eleven kids in my father’s family and the nine kids in our family, my brother Joey is the only one who had a son who had a son to carry on the Redman family name.. He walks on his toes like THIS.
12. Every night near sunset, after my mother has gone to bed, I walk out of the house and ask, “heads or tails?” Will it be a walk at the ocean or sunset at the bay?
13. The most fun I’ve had online all week is HERE.
More 13 Thursday fishing HERE.
June 23rd, 2010 11:12 pm
Oh, look…there’s a nibble on the line. Love your number ten!
June 24th, 2010 6:17 am
Lots of deep thoughts. I agree with number three. Grief is something to handle with care and compassion. Thank you for sharing. You always give me something to ponder.
June 24th, 2010 6:17 am
Love your number 3 and sorry for all those memories that keep clouding your days, but that is normal, I guess.
June 24th, 2010 7:25 am
#2 – spooky, I wonder if your dad did that?
#4 – I remember that too, complaining…
#12 – if only all of life’s decisions consisted of such great choices!
Great 13 – thanks for visiting mine!
June 24th, 2010 9:40 am
3. a truth to that. each body and each grief in it has its own timing.
5. sometimes I feel sneaky doing that. Tangentially, I was walking in a crowd last night and realized I could see over everyone’s head. School group.
7 &8 ah, we’re two of a kind.
9. thanks!
10 good point.
12. good times.
June 24th, 2010 10:19 am
#10 – too bad more people haven’t figured that out!
#11 – what are the odds?
#6 – I had to go to a spoiler website rather than see the movie. I hate scary thrillers.
June 24th, 2010 10:34 am
I love the church sign… more often than not, people who almost run into me or change lanes without seeing another car is there are on cell phones.
I do hope your mother is doing much better, I know she enjoys your company.
June 24th, 2010 11:14 am
I am seeing improvements in her pain level and stamina from the first week I was here. She will likely be walking with a walker from now on though, due to her osteoporosis.
June 24th, 2010 5:10 pm
Grief can be a heavy burden. Sometimes it just sneaks up on you and smacks you right in the head.
June 25th, 2010 3:13 am
i have no ties with grief any more that which aches should be bid farewell to!
http://bit.ly/9bHY6v
June 26th, 2010 10:53 pm
I just love Penquins–and I always have. There is something about them that is so very very endearing….!
Great TT Colleen….as always.
June 27th, 2010 4:10 am
clever, wise woman, you are. TT always reveals you.