Good day yesterday. Kind of a long day for some reason, but good. At least it felt long---I hadn't slept very well the night before. I worked and then Ernie picked me up and we stopped by to visit some dear friends that we haven't seen in WAY too long. He's just started chemo and so we talked about cancer and the goal that is 'living with cancer' and 'managing cancer.' That's not how we usually think of cancer---we usually think of fighting cancer, beating cancer...or else we think of dying from cancer. Yes, it would nice if it would just be gone...but that's not always reality so instead we live with it. Then we talked about kids losing teeth and politics and family and how long we've known each other. It was wonderful. I love them dearly. We got home and Owen still had a few questions left on his homework. May I just say that Owen and I and homework are not a good combination? I think I'm helpfully explaining and he immediately gets frenzied that he's not understanding it and thus doesn't listen to a thing I'm saying and then I get frustrated and....... Ay yi yi.... Fed him a quick dinner and then listened to him talk through an episode of the Good Wife which we were trying to watch. Ernie put Owen to bed as I fussed with making a late dinner for us. After Ernie came down I heard some suspicious thumping from upstairs and Ernie said, "oh yeah, Owen wanted you to come up and kiss him good night." I trudged upstairs to find a very sleepy Owen trying to read a book that was drooping from his hands. I set it down for him and he said, in a voice slow with sleepiness, "will you tell me something Mom?" I asked him what he wanted to hear and he said he didn't know. So I told him about when he was born. He likes to hear that story. I told him that they lifted him out of me and held him up so I could see him and his blonde hair was all wet from being inside me and it looked like little blonde dreadlocks...that he looked like a little baby surf punk. I told him that while they were sewing me up that they got him all cleaned up and put a little hat on him and wrapped him up tight like a little eggroll. By that time they'd rolled me back into my room and they brought him, all bundled up and laid him right next to me. He smelled delicious, like a little baked good. Owen interrupted me to say drowsily, " a baked good is like a muffin, right?" I told him yes and then I told him that when I looked down at him, my little eggroll bundle lying next to me, that all I could think was, "there's something special about Owen, there's something special about Owen." He smiled sleepily with closed eyes and said, "I love you Mom." I kissed his hand that lay near the edge of his bunk bed, told him I loved him too and went downstairs.
It was a good day, but I gotta say I think that was the very best part.