I am happy to report to those of you who have reached out over the days before last week’s storm, and to those of you who might have thought to reach out but were unable to do so, that we weathered Nemo just fine. There is a lot of snow up there!!! Sharon is a small town so we don’t get specific mention on the news, but in the general area south of Boston they seemed to be consistently saying that at least 2½ feet of snow fell. The barrage ended precisely when they said it would late Saturday morning, and at about 3:30 pm we heard a knock on our door and were surprised to find Simmie, Ronen, Eliana, and Maya standing there, all bundled up with red cheeks! We quickly made hot cocoa for everyone. None of us had lost power, and once the plow came through they decided to see if they could walk. The biggest challenge was getting down their driveway, where the drifts were higher than Maya is tall. When Sabbath ended, Barry and Ronen scraped off our car, and Barry drove Simmie and Ronen home and picked up pajamas for the girls so they could have a sleepover while their parents dug out the cars and cleared the driveway.
This was the first sleepover we had since before my diagnosis; I can’t remember precisely when the last one was but it must have been around a year ago. We had a great time. When Sabbath ended we made – what else? – macaroni and cheese. Every time we come to Sharon, we cook a pound of pasta and put it in a plastic bag to be portioned out as needed and heated with an outrageous amount of American cheese and a little milk and butter for quick mac’n’cheese. Maya told me that Barry makes it better because he uses more cheese than I do! Then we read some books and the girls took a bath and by the time they were ready for bed they pretty much conked out before we could get out the bedroom door. They slept until almost 7 am. We made pancakes for breakfast, played Lumosity, and before we knew it the girls had to leave because Maya had been invited to a birthday party. We had a quiet afternoon resting up for the annual dinner for the local Jewish day school on Sunday evening. Our son-in-law Aaron was one of the honorees in recognition for all the volunteer computer tech support he provides for the school faculty and staff. Also being honored was Nina, a teacher in the school whose husband is the son of the first friends we made after moving to Sharon in 1986. Dina and another Sharon friend put together and filmed a hilarious skit about Aaron and Nina which was shown. It was a really touching evening.
Monday turned out to be a long and complicated day. The six of us (sans les enfants) had been invited to a wedding in New York. The bride has been a close friend of Simmie’s for over 20 years. She has spent many Sabbaths and holidays with us over the years, and we were quite honored that she chose to include us in this wonderful event. For logistical reasons, only Simmie, Dina, Barry, and I were planning to go. But sometimes the best laid plans can go awry. Simmie was a bridesmaid so she left early Monday morning to spend the day helping her friend. Barry, Dina, and I were to follow a few hours later after Dina attended some meetings at school. But at about 9 we received a call from Simmie telling us she had an accident just past the Connecticut border. The good news is that she was not hurt, but she could not drive the car, and was waiting for a tow truck. We had been hearing that the roads were very slick and it was true. So we decided to leave at that point, with the plan that Dina would drive down later. The weather was awful and the drive was stressful, and we convinced Dina to stay put in Sharon, disappointing as that was. We got Simmie to the wedding location only about an hour before the festivities began, enough to share a little time with her friend and be in the pictures with the other attendants, but clearly much less than she had in mind. Barry and I were just exhausted and could not stay long, since we still had the drive back to Riverdale. We were just so glad to be there and to see Simmie’s friend looking so beautiful and so happy. Simmie arranged to catch a ride into the City and took a taxi from there to Riverdale; she did not come in until about 1 am (oh, to be young!).
Tuesday was a busy day, with my therapy and then my music class (for which I miraculously managed to stay awake): an interesting discussion of Mozart’s life and his 26th symphony.
Before I close, I want to share just one more vignette from my life, striving to the best of my ability to preserve the privacy of the other party. During the months of my illness, there has been one friend in particular who has been noticeably absent from our lives. We knew that this friend was aware of the situation, but not once had this person reached out to us, and it was a source of a good deal of hurt and disappointment. We saw the friend at a recent event we attended. We knew the friend would likely be there and we were prepared not to speak even if spoken to because we did not care to risk expressing our pain and making a scene. Our “snub” was certainly understood, and we arrived home to a tear-filled voice mail message. I returned the call and we spoke, and I feel very grateful that we are on the way to mending the rift.
We have known many people over the years to run like the wind when confronted with such painful circumstances. Often their explanation is “I did not know what to say.” Well, there are no magic words, but just “I am thinking about you” can go an amazingly long way. I know I am preaching to the proverbial choir here, because if you are reading this it is because you have been able to show us that you care. And I want each of you who have reached out, whether it was with one line or a pound of chocolates, to know that it has truly meant the world to us, and taught us yet again the importance of seizing those moments to perhaps bring a bit of light into someone’s life.
Speaking of which, time to get back to Lumosity!
Love,
Rebecca
No comments:
Post a Comment