While Dana was here, she asked me just why it mattered to me so much
that we remember good things about our parents. (I'd already
acknowledged the importance of remembering not-so-good things.) It's
because there
were good things, and they were struggling through
all the bad to come out with the good, so remembering the good was only
fair to them and their struggle, and it should help us, too, to focus
on something other than our wounds and blame-putting and finding ways to
excuse our own bad behavior as we both push 70 (thought blame-putting
and excusing our own bad behavior are good too).
I
also got around to telling Dana what I thought were some good things
about her--a few of them: She says the unexpected and avoids
platitudes. As she got dressed in my bedroom, putting on her flat
slippers to replace the shoes on stilts, I told her how impressed I was
by her back in 1966, when she arrived in California and responding to my
comment that we should take a stand on issues said, "No. I want to
move!"
We walked to West Portal (which she thought
was uphill), and I treated her to breakfast at the Village Grill after
she had bought her daily supply of cosmetics:
Dana's really beautiful and doesn't need the "enhancement" of 6 more masara wands,
six pairs of eye lashes, pencil eyeliner, eyelash curler, and whatever
else was in the $112.00 of cosmetics she bought along with the hair
spray and panty hose.
We sat and had a nice talk at the
Village Grill, and I told her more of why she was wonderful and what
was wonderful about our parents.
To be continued.
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