“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
~ Thomas Merton
Mom rallied overnight. Not only was she able to enjoy Christmas relatively pain-free (“pain-free” doesn’t really exist for her, mind you), but she insisted on making Christmas breakfast. We decided to make that our new tradition. Our presents were wonderful. They’re still buying me drums, which tickled me no end. Then we went down some weird rabbit hole of reminiscence where mom reminded me that I once called a certain teacher in the fifth grade a mother f*****. I have zero recollection of it. Oh, well. I also didn’t recall the hamster I had, or going into a panic when it bit me (apparently I thought I was going to die). Oh, well. The weirdest of all, however, was dad’s confession that he never liked James Bond.
ME: “What do you mean you don’t like James Bond? You watched those movies all the time.”
DAD: “That’s the English guy, right?”
ME: “Yes.”
DAD: “Yeah, I don’t like him as much as Clint Eastwood.”
ME: “But you let me stay up late when they came on, and we watched them together. Every one of them.”
<crickets>
After thirty-five years, dad confessed to mom that he didn’t like turkey. We’d been having turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas all that time. After forty years, he confessed to a dislike of meatloaf. Now, after nearly fifty years, it turns out he never liked James Bond. He makes me giggle. A conversation earlier in the day between he and mom went something like this:
DAD: “I’ve been trying to lose my voice for a week” (he said hoarsely)
MOM: “I believe you’ve got sinus.”
DAD: “Oh yeah, I took that in high school.”
Seriously, he cracks me up. It’s no wonder I have the crooked sense of humor I have. I wouldn’t trade him, or this Christmas, for anything.
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