Weekends

This weekend, I went home to spend time with my family. In many ways, this is significant. There was a time when I could not be dragged kicking and screaming back to Visalia, CA. Once there, I would soon break out in hives and have trouble breathing due to the claustrophobic feeling that I would be trapped there with no way out. Now, the negative feelings towards my hometown have diminished greatly, and I will actually choose to go back there on occasion. This was one of those times. I spent it baking mostly, topping off what was a successful run of cookies, fudge, and bread pudding with complete failure. I love it when success and pride come before the sour taste of ruin. Oh well, it was only one batch of cookies (minus the butter- apparently a key ingredient). Other than that, I spent time sitting quietly with my father, who for the first time in his life is not supposed to talk due to a possible polyp on his vocal chord (this awful thing causes your vocal chords to rub against each other and become irritated, it must be surgically removed- scary!). My father, retired teacher and preacher, is not supposed to talk louder than a soft, indoor voice. It is killing him emotionally, and it bothers my mom, who is used to hearing his voice constantly. Isn't that funny, sometimes we don't miss something until it is gone? I want my father's voice back, especially his sharing of trivial stories and facts he reads in the newspaper, his updated statistics on the big businesses of the world, and his recounting of his adventures around town. Instead, he listens a lot, which is nice, but different. Six weeks, and then hopefully the nasty polyp will either a)be healed, b)need surgery- MORE silence, or c)be something else entirely- possibly cancer or permanent damage- fun! Needless to say, I'm glad I was able to enjoy this weekend. Life is short and taken for granted too often.