Next time I decide to sit in the sun for an hour, please remind me of the just-beginning-to-really-stinkin'-hurt sunburn I have on my legs.
I spent the afternoon with my mom...and it was weird. When she wasn't giving me some time to myself and I wasn't off grocery shopping, she wanted to talk about my dad. Which hasn't happened since right after he died, and even then she didn't say much.
She was crazy about him. Crazy enough to turn a blind eye to much of the drinking, the lying, the laziness, the drugs...the women. She said that for years, all through high school, he was "the coolest cat in town". She said he was so charming that he could rob you blind and you'd just be happy you got to be around him. She said he was almost "girly" about taking care of his hair. She said that when they'd fight, he would stare at and pick at his fingernails rather than tell at her- a trait she said I have that drove her insane to have to see as I grew up. She told me, since he died, even though they'd been divorced for twenty years, she felt lost. And that I remind her of him far more than my brother does. And because of that, she's been struggling with taking her anger out for him on me. She told me that she worries for me, more than my brother, because I've always been too soft hearted about my dad...that she's watched closely for signs that I was headed for the same type of destruction. She said her actions and words to me in recent months have been full of good intentions but executed poorly. She gave me the only piece of jewelry my dad ever gave her- her plain gold wedding band.
A lot of very confusing and painful things make a lot more sense now.
I also got to spend a little time with my grandparents, helping to take some dishes and linens off their hands as they try to empty their house in order to sell it and move away, somewhere warmer. I have a box full of silverware- mismatched- that I remember using at holiday dinners. I probably now own the fork my brother used to stab a green bean and drop it into my can of Coke. And the spoon that the visiting missionaries' teenage son used to launch a deviled egg from the kids' table into my grandpa's lap.
My baby girl took her first step for her great grandparents to see.
Making peace with my sister hasn't worked out- she only spoke to me to ask if she could use my computer that I left at her house.
The woman at the electric company scolded me for paying so late, but then said I looked familiar and asked if I was related to (my grandmother), and when I said yes, she said "Well I'll be! You look just like she did when we were in school together. Except that purple in your hair."
I got warm gussies over that- I've always thought my grandma was beautiful.
It's been a very full day...God has been doing a lot more in my life than I realized.