My grandmother keeps a calendar upstairs in her kitchen.
At first glance there is nothing extraordinary about her calendar hanging quietly, unassuming next to the cordless phone cradle and a set of corner cabinets. Almost hidden, small in stature and dull in design, it remains almost unnoticeable when surveyed with the kitchen as a whole. (Cutko knives polished and burrowing into a wooden block, steal the show.)
Look closer and you’ll notice milestones scrawled throughout the pages in pencil, memories etched into the context of the years. There are typical birthday reminders, holidays, anniversaries, some graduations. There are football and baseball games starring my two local and collegiately clad cousins. There are to-do lists and other miscellaneous information she wants to recount specifically.
Then there are her notes. About him. (They remind her where they’ve been.)
They center on his aneurysm and stroke some eight years ago this upcoming November. Thanksgiving day, to be exact. She doesn’t celebrate it anymore. Not the way she used to. She is thankful, to be sure. They gave him six months. He’s an anomaly. A shattering of statistics. She’s the strongest, most stubborn, most amazing woman I’ve ever known.
She’s tired, too.
She remembers it vividly. Remembers everything. Which almost makes it strange that she has it all written down so precisely, as if she fears one morning she’ll awake and not be able to recall how they arrived at their current destination.
She’s playing nurse, but it’s no act. Unconscious love manifested in daily care looks like her second nature. No hospice, no nursing homes. She would never.
Would never trust him with another living soul the way she trusts herself to see to it that he keeps breathing, keeps eating, is around to keep smiling when we all stop by to visit and kiss him hello and goodbye. (I kiss the top of his head where his skull is slightly sunken in. A testament to the biggest, most damaging stroke.)
She holds his hand and asks him if he remembers how they used to love to dance, but she already knows the answer. He smiles and laughs, and we all watch as his eyes travel back in time some ten years prior, and he’s standing tall and handsome as ever, donning a dress-jacket and cowboy boots, two-stepping her around a dance-floor they’ve never really left.
(Happy birthday, grandma. Thank you for showing me daily what “for better and for worse” truly means.)
This week I have been:
Writing, editing, and organizing grant proposals, and preparing gargantuan-sized grant budgets feverishly, to meet deadlines both old and new.
Snuggling with my pug and enjoying any downtime I have been able to muster.
Writing! I’m so excited about three different stories I have in the works, and thanks to a recent prompt by Danny, I’ve been sitting down daily to translate my excitement into actual words on a page. (Not unlike snakes on a plane. Only → Read more...
This post inspired by my friend and partner in movie quote crime, Home Sweet Sarah.
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Some of the most memorable places I have stood, in no particular order:
On The Great Wall of China. Next to my sister as she took her wedding vows. In front of the Kremlin in Moscow. Next to my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Priest Lake. Specifically, my family’s Priest Lake dock spot. On Mt. Seorak, South Korea. Poolside for countless summers with friends, and cousins, and awesome(ly ridiculous) bikinis. At the base → Read more...
Full disclosure: I initially considered titling this post !!!!!!!!! but Wordpress started laughing at me, and threatened to throw spam.
At this point to say I cannot contain my already typically excessive exclaiming is to understate. HOW am I going to refrain from blurting out, “Hawaii! I’m going there!” from now until I leave at the beginning of September? Better yet, Maui! + getting to see my sister in TWO WEEKS = how am I going to sleep tonight? And the → Read more...
Originally aired: January 19, 2007. Watched by Kerri Anne: August 1, 2010. Courtesy of: Netflix Instant Watch. Because: a) I was in the mood for a lighthearted, kid-centric story; b) Netflix told me I would four stars enjoy it and saw fit to leave out crucial somber-tone-revealing plot points in their synopsis; c) Netflix is a lying liar face; d) ALL OF THE ABOVE.
Starring: A slew of great Spanish actors you’ve probably never heard of, most notably Ivana Baquero and Maribel Verdú. Protagonist’s → Read more...