For No One's Sake But Ours
It has been a busier week than usual; one in which I longed to sit down and capture my thoughts in this small corner.
I have glanced at my laptop in passing by, but the luxury of time to write eluded me!
And although I would be tucked up in bed by now if I had a sensible bone in my body, I can't let another day to go by without putting fingers to keyboard:
I wanted to talk to Rob on Saturday...I needed to debrief the emotion that unexpectedly inflamed my heart through reading Mum's letters and my journals of late 2002.
Throughout the day I looked at the clock many times, thinking of where he would be in his Saturday, over 3,000 miles away and in a different time zone. I know his routine by heart. At 5.00 p.m. here, I know that he will be putting on Bruce's lead and heading down the stairs of his flat, and out into the village for Bruce's nightly last walk. When he comes back, about 15 minutes later, he will take off the lead inside the front door and Bruce will gallop up the stairs ahead of him, and shake his big head at the top, his small ears flapping hard. Rob will take off his collar, talking to Bruce about getting into his (Bruce's) pajamas. Rob always says that they look very similar to his day clothes, in fact you can hardly tell them apart. :) Rob then moves Bruce's bed into the kitchen so that he can settle there and himself he takes the newspaper to bed for a read before going to sleep.
I didn't wait until 5.00, but called at 2.30 (7.30 in England,) when I knew he'd be sitting down for the evening, but before the next program on T.V. had started! It was a little later than I usually call.
His deep voice answered with a quick,"Hello," and when I said, "Hi Rob, it's me," he said, with surprise, warmth and gladness all wrapped up at once in his voice, "Oh, hello, Belinda!"
He told me that he had just sat down, with Bruce beside him on the settee, to read the paper, and I laughed and said, I could just imagine Bruce with his reading glasses on, peering at the paper. We joked that they were made extra wide to fit his Staffordshire Bull Terrier nose.
Then I told him about the pain I had uncovered as I relived those long ago months, in writing. I had wanted to ask him about his experience of that time, meaning to take notes and continue writing the story. He filled in more details that I hadn't even known, or remembered. It was good to talk about "then," and be thankful together for the later years. Later on that night, I wrote about knowing that it would not be right or respectful to write the details here.
And then we went on to other things--his boys, and his justified pride in who they are and how they are doing. I told him about the excitement of Brenda and Kevin's first house purchase together about to be completed and their pending move this summer. His voice conveyed his happiness for them.
Before we knew it, covering these and other topics, we had talked ourselves out and almost an hour had gone by. He resumed his evening's viewing and I my cleaning frenzy.
Back in August last year, in a blog post: Nobody Tells You, that we were floundering in our relationship. We are so different and Mum had been the centre of our conversation and our lives in many ways, and she bound us together. Without her, I felt unsure, uncertain of the next step in the dance of relationship. I wrote back then: "We will find our way and find one another in a new way. We love each other. We just don't quite know how to be yet; now that she's gone."
I realized on Saturday that it has happened; we have found one another for no one's sake but ours! I wonder if it was coincidence that it happened to be Mother's Day weekend when this hit me. :)
I have glanced at my laptop in passing by, but the luxury of time to write eluded me!
And although I would be tucked up in bed by now if I had a sensible bone in my body, I can't let another day to go by without putting fingers to keyboard:
I wanted to talk to Rob on Saturday...I needed to debrief the emotion that unexpectedly inflamed my heart through reading Mum's letters and my journals of late 2002.
Throughout the day I looked at the clock many times, thinking of where he would be in his Saturday, over 3,000 miles away and in a different time zone. I know his routine by heart. At 5.00 p.m. here, I know that he will be putting on Bruce's lead and heading down the stairs of his flat, and out into the village for Bruce's nightly last walk. When he comes back, about 15 minutes later, he will take off the lead inside the front door and Bruce will gallop up the stairs ahead of him, and shake his big head at the top, his small ears flapping hard. Rob will take off his collar, talking to Bruce about getting into his (Bruce's) pajamas. Rob always says that they look very similar to his day clothes, in fact you can hardly tell them apart. :) Rob then moves Bruce's bed into the kitchen so that he can settle there and himself he takes the newspaper to bed for a read before going to sleep.
I didn't wait until 5.00, but called at 2.30 (7.30 in England,) when I knew he'd be sitting down for the evening, but before the next program on T.V. had started! It was a little later than I usually call.
His deep voice answered with a quick,"Hello," and when I said, "Hi Rob, it's me," he said, with surprise, warmth and gladness all wrapped up at once in his voice, "Oh, hello, Belinda!"
He told me that he had just sat down, with Bruce beside him on the settee, to read the paper, and I laughed and said, I could just imagine Bruce with his reading glasses on, peering at the paper. We joked that they were made extra wide to fit his Staffordshire Bull Terrier nose.
Then I told him about the pain I had uncovered as I relived those long ago months, in writing. I had wanted to ask him about his experience of that time, meaning to take notes and continue writing the story. He filled in more details that I hadn't even known, or remembered. It was good to talk about "then," and be thankful together for the later years. Later on that night, I wrote about knowing that it would not be right or respectful to write the details here.
And then we went on to other things--his boys, and his justified pride in who they are and how they are doing. I told him about the excitement of Brenda and Kevin's first house purchase together about to be completed and their pending move this summer. His voice conveyed his happiness for them.
Before we knew it, covering these and other topics, we had talked ourselves out and almost an hour had gone by. He resumed his evening's viewing and I my cleaning frenzy.
Back in August last year, in a blog post: Nobody Tells You, that we were floundering in our relationship. We are so different and Mum had been the centre of our conversation and our lives in many ways, and she bound us together. Without her, I felt unsure, uncertain of the next step in the dance of relationship. I wrote back then: "We will find our way and find one another in a new way. We love each other. We just don't quite know how to be yet; now that she's gone."
I realized on Saturday that it has happened; we have found one another for no one's sake but ours! I wonder if it was coincidence that it happened to be Mother's Day weekend when this hit me. :)
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