The fiftieth state, for the curious among you, is South Dakota. I have nothing against South Dakota. It's a lovely state. I've been there! Badlands National Park -- gorgeous! I missed the Corn Palace and Mount Rushmore, though.
So, I got a call from the hospital today. I'll tell you all more about it another time, but the call came while I was in the middle of painting what would have been Jane's room. Which hadn't bothered me in the least, until after the call. The amazing group of children's writers at Tom's college had put together a collection of their books to donate in Jane's memory, and each had a beautiful bookplate based on a painting one of the authors had made for Jane. Anyway, there's a committee at the hospital putting together a remembrance service this spring (oh. It looks like I'm telling you about the call now, after all), and they were hoping to use part of the image from the bookplate for the invitation. Lovely, right? I was completely touched, and of course gave permission, and of course started to cry. I was just so surprised. I mean, I can meet up with Awesome Nurse Kristy or Awesome Nurse Angela, and talk about all of this stuff and not get upset. But one unexpected phone call and I'm undone.
I was glad about it, to be honest. It's been a while since I cried. It was good. Unfortunately the cleaning lady was here, so I cranked the cheesy tunes where I was painting, and wept quietly and worked until I wasn't weeping anymore. Most of the time I'm okay, not great, but sort of dealing the way you do when you have a low-grade fever. You just kind of plow through.
It's funny, I'm finding that I think about Jane most frequently in the car. That's when I'm turning over how things played out, wondering whether any decisions could have been made differently, if the outcome could have been different. Which they couldn't. I know.
Oh, and the room? Tragic color choice. It looks like a Miami Beach cabana in there. Sarah, of course, now wants it for her own room, so yay on not wasting a gallon of fancy-schmancy no VOC paint. But back to the paint store tomorrow. Because we have houseguests coming and nowhere to put them if I don't get this done. Sarah and her friend's birthday party is the weekend, and I'm not ready AT ALL, so clearly now is the time to take on an unnecessary painting project. Go, me.
3 comments:
Why yes of course not only plow through but pile it on, right? :) I know that one well.
I love the whole book, bookplate, memorial story and hope that after the birthday party and houseguests you'll consider uploading some of the images????
I'm going to paint a rock for Jane and put it in the Labyrinth. Also for dear Ann. And others.... I once did a kind of "pass-it-on" think called "Kindness Rocks!" where we painted that phrase on river rocks and left them anonymously for folks at grocery stores, gas stations, mailboxes, etc.
So I'll let you know when those go in.
Plowing through like with a low-grade fever. That makes perfect sense.
leon marlow, university of south dakota at vermillion. i'll make a call. meanwhile:
hey
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