A friend of mine had a stroke ten years ago – when her daughter called to tell me, I just started crying immediately. Grace under pressure not me. Now the daughter has a daughter who has copious medical problems that are so opaque no one knows what is wrong and so today three doctor appointments deep, I was waiting for a debriefing when I got a call that mom #1 had experienced black outs and had been rushed to the hospital. I saw my friend’s husband and he said, we’re just getting ready to retire and suddenly all this.
There is a message in the bottle.
When my dad was 62, he retired and moved back to New Orleans and died of a massive coronary while he was putting on his socks to have lunch with me. He wouldn’t come to the door and I banged and banged and got totally vexed and vowed to give him a piece of my mind. We had just had dinner the night before and he picked up the tab (AS USUAL) and he swore I could buy him lunch. Then gone. My mother called and said she had come home and found him dead. I called my sister who was in D.C. at the time and she started crying before I finished saying what had happened. Grace under the pressure not.
Steve and I couldn’t afford to go on a honeymoon so we came to New Orleans from San Francisco. Then two years later after saving all our money we took a month long tour of Italy. Only I got sick the second day and was so horribly ill that he had to take me down to Lecce where his good friend’s wife’s father was a doctor and could take care of me. I was given homemade ravioli and some sort of antibiotics and after returning three weeks later, I was all better.
Don’t wait. Nothing waits. Nothing is ever completed, or good enough, nor is there world enough and time, don’t wait, there is nothing to wait for – go for it all now because it is never going to be all ready for prime-time, it’s always going to be one thing or the other.
I found the solution to the delaminating window – put a plant in front of it. I found the solution to workers who don’t show up – forgetaboutit. I found that life is about right now, real time, real wonderful, and ready to be lived. Did we need Katrina to drive home this message? Maybe. We’ll also take our silver linings whereever they come.