Feeling Today

A number of years ago I was washing dishes with a relative.  It was a year or so after her father had died.  While he died at a old age and had lived a full life, the final years had been a struggle for him and his children.  She had been his primary caretaker.  She was his daughter.  As we washed plates and glasses from a holiday meal, I asked how she was doing; this holiday, a year later.  In a week or two it would be his birthday.  I wondered, out loud, what the year had felt like without her father.  I meant to acknowledge the day, to honor him, to give her a moment to share her feelings.

She smiled an indecipherable smile at me.  I know she said something about her dad--a brief acknowledgment.  I remember that she said, "I just try to think of the positive."  Then it was done.  She dried a plate.  Set it down.  And asked me for the glass I was washing so that she could dry it.  The topic moved on.

I remember mentally noting that she said, "think" where I had asked about "feelings."  Our languages didn't match up.

Some days I wish I didn't feel birthdays and anniversaries and the date my loved one died.  Some days, I wish my primary language wasn't "feelings."

But it is.

Today is Carole's birthday.  She would have been 64.  Though, she wouldn't have celebrated it today.  Aging was something she lived in denial of...believing that by pure strength and positive thought (plus a lot of aerobics and some other potions and creams) she could over come it.

That wasn't the way it went.

Try as she might, keeping her cards hidden until July when her pool was open and the sun was hot, didn't put off aging...nor did it keep us from celebrating her birth.  Which was the real point.  That she lived.

Through all the emotions I have today, I am giving thanks for that.  She lived.