CLOSING THOUGHTS from Mimi Nash
Are you in the mood for some good news today? Of course you are; we all are! I believe that I told you about my dear friend of 60 years who was in the hospital with Covid-19. She was not expected to recover, and at her request, all treatment beyond doing those things to keep her comfortable had ceased.
This morning I received a call that I felt certain was bringing the news of her passing. But no, instead I was told that she had tested negative for the viral infection. This is a woman whose poor health has resulted in her being bedridden in a nursing facility for over two years. She is a lifelong smoker. And yet it seems that she has rebounded from the jaws of death. I’m hoping that there will be a way to put her under a microscope and find out what she has that the rest of us need.
We’ve always teased her about her “vanity” which included twice weekly trips to the hair salon and very frequent trips to the nail salon. So, another friend and I joked privately that she must have heard that the Governor had approved the reopening of hair salons and nail salons (among a few other “essential” businesses like bowling alleys and tattoo parlors, but I’m getting off track here); she must have decided to come back for one more round of beautification before she makes her final exit.
Whatever the motivation, I think it is nothing short of a miracle, and I wanted to share that bit of uplifting news.
We’ve tried to keep a little humor in our days of self-isolation, after all laughter is the best medicine as we all know. My group of girl first-cousins has tried to share some little giggles every few days, and these came today. “Stepped on my scale this morning and it said: Please use social distancing, one person at a time.” Then came another… “I can’t decide after all this is over, whether to make an appointment with Weight Watchers or AA first!” This interchange began when my Texas cousin quipped, “In four weeks, we will find out what everybody’s real hair color is.” And that started it…
My daughter-in-law and I have been diligently working on our creative version of a Victory Garden. We’ve practiced sustainable practices and one of them is using toilet paper tubes which we cut in half to place around seeds we’ve planted. Our thinking was that these little cardboard circles would protect the tender plants as they sprout and help us know where each seed had been put. We’ve used plastic knives as markers on which we identify what has been planted, i.e. beans, okra, squash, etc. After the first three buckets/improvised planters were completed, it looked for the world to me like we were growing toilet paper. So instead of identifying them as beans, squash or okra, we made plastic knife markers that said “Scott,” “Charmin,” and “Angel Soft.” We’ve milked this silliness to exhaustion, asking friends and family to place their orders for the brand they prefer.
When all else fails to tickle our funny bone, we resort to stories about my mother, my daughters’ “Grandma Polly.” Those can keep us amused for hours on end. For example, she was smitten by the little battery operated characters that would talk or sing or even dance. So when I saw a plastic Macaw-type bird that would mimic what you said to him, I couldn’t resist, and I bought it for her. He was also gifted at picking up words from the TV and saying them as if they were original thoughts of his.
Mother named him Bill the Bird, and they became best friends. She told us that Bill had once worked for Delta Air Lines and that he really liked Chardonnay! But one of the best stories involving Bill was when one day we went to visit Grandma Polly, she said in a very somber voice, “Poor Bill has laryngitis, and he can barely speak.”
I told her that I had some medicine in my purse that I thought would help. I took poor sick Bill into the other room where I “borrowed” a couple of batteries from another of the collection of animated characters, replaced the ill ones in Bill and returned the miraculously recovered bird to his seat of honor in front of the TV. There are a million Grandma Polly stories, and no matter how many times we tell them, they always bring on gales of laughter.
How about sharing what has kept you laughing during a time when we may feel more like crying. (My contact information is at the bottom of this page.)
I send you much love and laughter as we look forward to living in the light once again.
Namaste,
Mimi
