Danny has the mistaken belief that he has spent Thanksgiving with his aunt and uncle every single year for years. In truth that is false, but the week before Thanksgiving he got into a big discussion with his neuropsychologist about it, and about having me drop him at their house for dinner...unannounced I might add...because he is "expected" to be there. The Dr tried talking to him about "appropriateness", which Danny has a huge problem with. Dr. D. explained that you wait to be invited somewhere, and you never assume people are going to do things only because you expect them to. We finally hammered out a plan of action where we agreed Danny would call and ASK first, and that if ok, I could run him a half hour away to their house in the morning, but would be unable to pick him back up before our own dinner. He also needed to call early enough in the week. Well, he mentioned it alot during the week, but ultimately waited until 9:30pm Thanksgiving eve to call and ask. His aunt was caught off guard, and said their dinner was at 1pm and since mine was at 3pm maybe it wouldn't be the best idea. Thats what Danny told me was said anyway.
My dinner went nice. Its always a bitter-sweet thing when family relationships and situations are out of balance, but it is what it is. I tried to present a beautiful dinner table for my family and my friend Barb and her son and grandson, who also came. I am always amazed afterwards about how much time and effort we put into these holiday event out of love for our families. Two full days and nights of cooking and preparing and another 6hrs of dishes and clean-up, for a dinner and visitors that lasted around two hours. Same thing at Christmas. But at least this year I tried to be relaxed as possible and enjoy my company. Never mind that Danny's inappropriateness caused him to attempt to have dinner in a dingy white T-shirt with a hole in it and sweat pants he had on for 3 days...I made him go change...and he sat through dinner with a big wad of slightly blood-tinged tissue paper stuffed into and hanging out of his right nostril. Oh well...
The day before Thanksgiving a package arrived for me. It was from one of my friends in the brain injury support group...an older woman from Oklahoma whose husband got his brain injury almost 4 mo. after Danny got his. She is a wonderful sweet woman, who like most of the girls in our group have gone and still are going through all sorts of assorted behavior, cognitive and physical problems with their brain injured loved ones. Her husband was strikingly similar to Danny in some of it, and her and I are very alike as people too I believe. Well, thinking the package contained a book to read since she sent one a few months earlier, I opened it to find a cute little hand crafted note card. It read...
"Just for you Blue-so you will
remember that you are loved and cared
for. This has been broken and mended
as all of us sisters have been...but I
wanted you to have it as I have no
truer sister...love you, Sybil"
My eyes welled up as I lifted a beautiful statuette out of the box. I felt an odd awareness that this was one of those moments that will stand out in my heart more so than most. The figurine was two angels facing eachother, and was inscribed...
"Some sisterhoods don't happen at birth...but grow in the hearts of people who completely understand each other."
How remarkably beautiful and appropriate...in the support group we call ourselves a sisterhood, and we understand this journey we are on, and each other, as no one else possibly can. Over the past many months some of us have grown closer than others, and have found so many more similarities between us...in our lives, experiences, hardships, traumas....
One wing lay in the box...obviously had been glued but came off again during shipping. We ARE angels with broken wings...but with love and patience and support, can mend ourselves and each other.
It was ironic that the wing was off. It seemed almost as though there were some message coming from somewhere that was meant to be heard. There was definately a lesson therein.
My first thought was "super glue"...the easy, quick and fail-safe solution. My son ran for some at the store for me. Well, the surfaces wouldnt even slightly bond...it was as if I had put a drop of water there and expected it to work like glue. Ok, so the quick easy fix doesnt work. It doesnt work when we try it in real life either. Life requires work in order to progress, to change. So out came the slow-drying Elmers School Glue. Long story short, I glued and waited, over and over again. It seemed to get tacky and stick, and then with the slightest movement as I tried to set the figurine down, off came the wing again. As it ended up, I actually sat and held the wing in place for a full hour until it was dry enough to set down, and then I pain-stakingly balanced it on the counter top and left it alone even longer. Hours later, I applied another layer of glue. It is fixed, but not without much patience and care, some level of intense frustration, and a great deal of perseverance. All the while, I was aware of the lesson being taught about life.
My wonderful friend made my Thanksgiving holiday. I cant even reMEMBER when I've received an unexpected gift, and one so meaningful and very precious. Thankyou Sybil for all you've taught...
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