A Good Day -- With Bad News

Tuesday Ginny and I spent an idyllic day at home fiddling with things that are too long.

She cut off and hemmed two pairs of cargo pants I’d bought for a dollar at a garage sale. Her sewing machine hummed as she shortened the legs. I worked at my desk formatting a book manuscript that I need to shorten by 200 pages (ever notice that I write long?).

We’d break to smoke and sip coffee and talk over our projects.

She stored away Christmas presents and wrapping paper for next year (The kids tease us about recycling Christmas wrappings; we have one set of gift bags still in use that are dated 1995).

We discussed where to put the three new cat statues people gave her and the best location for my two vultures.

After lunch, we strolled through the park and fed squawking ducks. On an island in the pond we spotted a pair of Great Egret.

We rested on a bench with the sun warming our backs as we talked about medical options and character. Beauty revealed facets of herself that I’d never noticed before; after being married for 38 years, I thought I knew the woman but I still discover new and wondrous things about her that surprise and delight me.

As we talked a massive flight of White Ibis circled the pond and landed. Their distinctive curved yellow bills, the long legs trailing in flight, the black wingtips and white wings in the sunlight — a magical sight.

Beautiful.

Delightful.

Then we came home.

To the telephone.

Yes, our youngest daughter missed Christmas with the family because she’s been sick. Yes, she felt uncomfortable about coming home because she could not afford both college and presents (as though the lack of presents would have mattered).

But complicating the situation, it seems as though she is on drugs again.

When she was a teen, she went through a bad patch with drugs. She conquered her addiction and thrived for a while excelling in studies and maturing in outlook.

I’m so proud of her and so concerned for her.

I understand that it is not unusual for addicted people on the road to recovery fall off the wagon a few times before finally winning their battle. But each setback is enormously painful.

Ginny and I ponder how we can help her without enabling the drug habit.

Of course, she has not asked for our help yet.

So on one level it is none of our business.

She’s a grown woman and free to make her own decisions and live her own life apart from us. But at the same time, she’s our little girl, our little sis, and the whole family grieves that she’s in danger.

Yes, the shit she’s into may well kill her.

We can set an example of a happy life for her, we can pray for her, we can practice tough love, we can encourage, praise and support — but the ultimate choices and the ultimate consequences are hers.

Concerning the pair of vultures:

Beauty and I decided to separate the pair. The inside vulture, still with ribbons, broods atop Fancy’s cage (birds of a feather, you know). Our outside, vulture, minus ribbons, will perch on the back rain gutter.

I really wanted the outside vulture to sit on the chimney, but there it could be seen from the street and in our neighborhood some citizen might try to shoot it off the roof, so we nixed that idea.

I wonder where Martha Stewart would place hers?

I’ll have to write and ask her advice.