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trying for perspective
Nov. 2nd, 2005 09:12 amThe stresses of the day to day. I was sitting around fretting about the fact that Florence left her art project on the counter when it's due today, wondering whether to try to drop it off in the appropriate art room or just have her turn it in late tomorrow. The person I gave the loom to wants to give it back, because something about it is shredding the warp threads. I have no room to store it, so I need to find someone else to wants it, who might be able to repair it. The old unsafe car is still taking up garage space while the new car sits unsheltered in the driveway. I missed flu shot day at the local Harvard Vanguard office. Stuff like that.
Then someone on the radio was interviewing an IRC worker in Pakistan saying "there are not enough winterized tents in the world to house everyone here." Yikes. What am I complaining about? There *is* a life and death matter in my family and we're sort of treating it like one more scheduling problem. My mother's younger brother is dying of liver cancer. Back a couple of months ago when we all hoped the extended chemo would help, we planned a large gathering at my aunt & uncle's place (all of my birth family, my cousins and their spouses and children, Arthur & Florence) for December 23rd. Now we're couching it in terms of hoping that as he said yesterday on the phone he "can hold out that long." I asked if I should come sooner. He said wait and see. Otherwise he and I mostly talked about Florence's college essays. A normal conversation, interspersed with chat about practical matters of things that need to happen while he's still around. Dying simplified to items on the to-do list.
Then someone on the radio was interviewing an IRC worker in Pakistan saying "there are not enough winterized tents in the world to house everyone here." Yikes. What am I complaining about? There *is* a life and death matter in my family and we're sort of treating it like one more scheduling problem. My mother's younger brother is dying of liver cancer. Back a couple of months ago when we all hoped the extended chemo would help, we planned a large gathering at my aunt & uncle's place (all of my birth family, my cousins and their spouses and children, Arthur & Florence) for December 23rd. Now we're couching it in terms of hoping that as he said yesterday on the phone he "can hold out that long." I asked if I should come sooner. He said wait and see. Otherwise he and I mostly talked about Florence's college essays. A normal conversation, interspersed with chat about practical matters of things that need to happen while he's still around. Dying simplified to items on the to-do list.
