Selling Sno-Cones at the Beach

No pain, no gain

Dad is onto toast (he skipped right over semi-solids like pudding and jello, imagine that) and had a walk outdoors today. I talked with him last night; he sounded chipper but sounded like he didn't want to talk about the details of his surgery or how he felt. Typical, of course.

My mom told me he'd felt not-so-good for about a year, and the pain was severe enough this past Monday for him to be wheedled to the doctor. Also typical. My family is like a gaggle of Jewish mothers: "No, I'm fine. I'm just going to die over here quietly in this corner. No, it's alright. No, I don't need anything. Don't bother about me."

While I, by contrast, gulp Advils by the bottle-ful. Sometimes I wonder how it is that I've come so far from those Calvinist/Lutheran roots of self-abnegation and denial. In the end, perhaps not so far at all: while my body enjoys itself, my brain is composing a stern lecture to be delivered at 4 am each day, on my screwups and failures. One of the greatest things about quitting my job and going back to school was that, largely, the 4 am self-lectures have stopped.