When I look at my calendar notes from a year ago today, here’s what I see:
– S. French lesson
– mailed DVD to D. @ Grand Hyatt
– S. trimmed mock orange hedge, listened to Les Miz.
– T. finished poster for E., printed @ UH Kinko’s (M. agreed to delivery . . . )
– T. to Ycamp, windsurfed and got T’s camera
– T. rehearsal in Lihue, came home with idea for Sunday
– S. watched French movie with RG
It must have been a day off because there’s no “S. office work” or “shoot @ . . .”.And when I thumb ahead I see that there are no more entries like “S. French lesson” until late in the spring of the following year.And you can see that on 9/24/08 I did several things relating to French studies—the lesson, listening to the story of Les Miserable (en francais for kids) and watching a movie with Rocket Girl.For those of you who know me, yes, I did get to go to France four months later to study French, but I didn’t crack a book once between the 24th of September and then.Why?Our life was about to change though we didn’t know it at the time.
Looking at the calendar notes, I see that M. at Kinko’s agreed to deliver a poster. This was a big deal because Tony had been working hard on a surprise poster for a friend with cancer.He and his wife were in Honolulu where he was being treated with radiation.Tony had photographed the important people in E.’s life and made a fabulous poster—a collage of all these happy, smiling familiar faces.We wanted to bring some sunshine into his life, surprise him, and remind him that he wasn’t alone and that we were all thinking of him.Long story short, it was going to be too late to get the poster to him before they left Honolulu because of all kinds of boring, real-world things.So I called back.
“It’s really important that it gets delivered because . . .”“Okay,” she said, “Someone can simply drive it over to their hotel.”
Sigh.We were so glad to know that they were going to get it.We imagined their happy faces and felt glad to be able to do a little bitty something to make their lives better—for the moment.
Little did I know that this was the last week that my 87 year old Dad would ever play tennis.
An 87 year old man playing tennis, you ask? Yes, my Dad was an amazing athlete.He’d been playing tennis since he was a kid in Knoxville, Tennessee during the depression.He and some life-long friends made a court in the dirt.Little did they realize how much that one simple act would affect the rest of their lives. Earlier in September 2008 Dad had won a three hour match at a national tennis tournament. Yes, a 3 hour match!And he and mom had driven to the tournament in their 35’ motor home.
So, fast-forward to Sunday, September 28, 2008.Dad had trouble putting his shoes on for church that morning.
Refusing to be discouraged by his heavy feet, he met friends at the court the following day for their weekly match.The heaviness continued and by Friday the 3rd of October, he couldn’t walk.
Later, I wrote some letters to girlfriends about what was going on.