Two Weeks or a Fortnight

It was my dad’s wedding anniversay yesterday.  And on the 14th of January it will be his birthday.  He would have been 112, probably a little too old to enjoy life.  He did live until he was 76 – not really bad in today’s world.  Strange little sayings of his stay with me.  “Nothing is fair.”  Catherine quoted him when she spoke in Sacrament meeting last week.  He told her this saying when he was a teen-ager and she has her own words to describe how she felt about it.  From what I can remember, she resented it, railed against it, wanted to deny it, etc.

I was thinking of another of his sayings today, also thinking of it in connection with Catherine.  Doral would say that if you just let a cold go, it will take 2 weeks to cure it.  Or you can get medicine for it and the cure will take a fortnight.

Catherine has been sick.  Really sick.  The kind of sick where many times in the day a person has to decide if they should stay standing or hit the bed.  Now I get to make that decision many times a day, even if I am not sick.  But back to Catherine?  She has stayed standing.

I didn’t mean for my post to go in this direction this morning, but now that I am on a roll, here it is.  Catherine and Eric spoke in church last week.  It was a diminished congregation.  Many people had gone home to their families and so those of us who were left were a small group.

I had practised a few hymns during the week.  That is because the week before, there was no one to play the piano.  Catie came down and asked me to do it, but I haven’t played for years.  No exaggeration there.  I said no.  She stood up when the opening hymn was announced to lead it.  Still no one at the paino.  I got off of my pew and went to do the honours.  I estimate that I hit the right notes at the beginning of most bars, but I couldn’t do much more than that.

Well, back to last Sunday again, where the piano player did appear so all I had to do was rest on the pew.

Catherine rose to a height that let me know I was present during a sacred moment.  Most mothers might say that about their children, but not me.  I am a brutal critic.  I actually just shouldn’t go to church at all, because I can’t leave that function at home.  At any rate, I was there, she did her talk, only choking up at one phrase.  The rest of it was as though Dr. Patterson had coached her for the festival. 

I actualy felt sorry when she stopped.  Sorry for Eric who had to follow her. 

He was riding a different train.  I thought he was giving honest, pravtical advice from his profession. Useful.  In fact, on a different day, I would have been taking notes.  Then he used two examples from his own life, ones that had happened so recently that the truth of them was still present, at least one of them for me.  He used an example of a phone call from his brother, and he used an example of trying to parent Hebe. 

Both, exquisite, both in pain and beauty.

Time for me to go to church.  Anyone who wants to know more will have to saying something in the comment section and I will go on and on and on and on ….

Arta