I was awakened at 8:10 this morning by Mother hollering from downstairs “DEE! Bruce is on the phone!” I hollered at the kids and scrambled downstairs. We all sat around the kitchen table and visited with him on the speakerphone. It was a good connection.
Mother chatted perfectly normally, and when we hung up she burst into tears. It’s hard for her to grieve, and not have Bruce nearby for comfort. His being in Iraq has been far more stressful than she has really let on. I cannot imagine my horror at Michael if her were in a place where people were trying to kill him.
After the call I tried to go back to bed for about an hour but I couldn’t sleep. I got up and went downstairs and had a bowl of cereal with the kids.
I spent some time this morning working on cleaning my room, but it’s far from clean. Dust is my enemy, and at the moment it’s winning.
My old friend Gary came by as we were eating a sandwich for lunch. We have been friends since college. He is a bachelor but he likes kids and has nieces and nephews. He teaches at the University of Georgia in Athens. I know he’s a great teacher.
When he got here he said he wasn’t hungry. He then ate Mike’s sandwich, a bowl of soup, and had a bowl of fruit salad. Good thing he wasn’t hungry. He’s not a big guy but he can put away some food. When we were in college I used to invite Gary to dinner and practice cooking. He would eat the failures as well as the successes.
Gary and I visited and caught up, but he spent a lot of time talking to the kids. He showed them how to use their new cameras more effectively. He’s an excellent photographer.
Gary has an artists’ eye. He is intrigued with Alesia’s beauty – he told her several times how beautiful she is. I think he was startled to find she has turned into a young lady. He hasn’t seen her in a while.
When Gary left, we went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – the new movie with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. It was a lovely movie. I really enjoyed it. In the story, a baby born in 1918 has the body of an old man, and as he gets older, his body gets younger and younger. The material was so rich and thought-provoking, it was like a poem you want to re-read, to catch the whole meaning of it. It’s got a lot of symbolism in it, which is so unexpected in a big Hollywood movie. I want to see it again.
I promised Michael we would go by Game Stop on the way home, but it was about 6:45 when we got there, and it was closed. He really took it hard. He came home and pouted. I pointed out that he’s gotten two new games in the past few days. He still pouted. He just sat in a chair on the front porch for a while, then sat on the steps, head in hands. I think he didn’t get enough sleep last night and he hasn’t eaten enough today. I bribed him into getting a bubble bath, and I even let him eat some of his Christmas candy while he was in the tub. He came out a clean and much happier boy. I think he just didn’t get enough sleep last night.
At 8:00 all of us were glued to the TV, because there was a program on CNN in which my cousin appeared. Linda and her husband Bry are proud parents of almost-grown kids, and in their free time they play in a Jimmy Buffett tribute band. On CNN, the story was about events in the past year, and they showed the band singing a funny song about high gas prices. If you want to book them for a gig, here's the website.
[caution: the next paragraph contains a spoiler for the movie Benjamin Button]
The movie might have bothered Michael on a subconscious level. It’s a story about adoption. When Benjamin is born, his mother dies, then his father leaves him on the steps of a boarding house for old folks, and the proprietor there, a young black woman named Queenie, raises him. Once he grows up, he learns about his birth parents, and gets to know his father. When he goes to the funeral with Queenie by his side, she remarks “He’s gonna be buried right next to your mother.” He gives her an affectionate hug and says “YOU are my mother.” Well, that didn’t make me cry in the movie, but when I was telling Mother about the scene later, it made big tears come in my eyes. I cannot imagine loving my children any more than I do. I love them with every breath in my body – in my book, that’s what a mother is, someone who’s there day in and day out, caring for and loving the child.
