A Little Bit Back To Normal

Life is getting a little bit back to normal, yet I am still sad. This morning Carter flew back to Boston with Russ taking her to the airport at 4:40 in the morning. It was sad not to have her around today, but she has lots to do to graduate this semester so throwing in all these funerals and celebrations of life and it means she is flying back and forth a lot.

Russ flew off to Annapolis this afternoon for a work meeting for the next few days. I went to work in the memorial garden for garden club this morning. It was real normalcy for me. Only six people showed up so I got a lot of digging in and doing that kind of work is good for the soul.

I went back to teach a night Mah Jongg class in Raliegh today. Had a group of 12 new students who caught on fairly quickly. Teaching at night is not my best teaching, but getting back into a routine is good for me. In between those people activities I did a lot of planning work on my Dad’s services and parties. He loved to throw a party and I wish he had planned all these things, but that would have meant he knew he was not invincible.

One thing hit me today as I was driving by a house in my neighborhood that my father had commented on a few months ago. He asked me if this particular house was abandoned. I laughed and said, no that it actually had been recently renovated. His comment back was, “Those people were robbed.” I really wish my Dad was with me today because as I drove by the same house I noticed some tiny trees, really barley sticks, that had been haphazardly planted a while ago in the front yard and they still had the big white paper tags attached with elastic to one of the two tiny branches of each trees. My father would have gotten a big laugh at these people for not bothering to remove the tags as well as not planning their landscaping any better. I know my response would have been to him, “What do you expect from an abandoned house?” He would have just said, “dopes.”

I do miss sharing the absurd with my Dad. We had the same sense of humor. He particularly did not have any patience for dopes. When Carter and I were up at my mom’s on Friday we came across brand new t-shirt in my Dad’s closet. It said on it. “I will try and be nicer if you try and be smarter.” I really wish I could ask him if he bought it or it was given to him because there is no truer statement about him.

Even my normal days still remind me of my Dad.