Postcard from my mom's backyard.I've always found that tragedy has a way of bringing on comedic moments, giving our heavy hearts a much needed break and allowing us a little comic relief. This reminds me of when my cousins were put in charge of designing the program at Aunt Maria's funeral, put Sade quotes in bouncy bubble letters on each page. They truly thought that quotes from "Lover's Rock" and "Love Deluxe" was an appropriate filler between old photos of my aunt and passages from the bible. My grandfather, who lost the passage that he was supposed to read at the church, read the program back to us, Sade quotes and directions to the cemetery included. I had streams of tears from holding back my laughter, dripping down my face as Carmella, who was sitting next to me and under her breath saying, "He's reading the Sade quotes, I can't believe he's reading the Sade quotes. I'm going to kill Anthony for putting them in there." We all sat there in silence as my grandfather went through all six pages - front and back - of the program.
Before heading back to the hospital yesterday, my mother surprised me with goodies that she picked up from Rite Aid for me. You know you're an adult when being treated to a bag full of toiletries makes your day. Laid out on my bed, I found Optic White toothpaste, a three pack of Glide dental floss, a new loofah, cucumber body wash, fancy green apple face scrub, this month's Vogue and Depends...in designer colors. I swear to God, there always has to be something in my family. There I was standing my bedroom with my boyfriend, holding an issue of Vogue in one hand and a package of adult diapers in the other. I couldn't even bank on the fact that Séb didn't understand what their purpose was because the text on the purple package was in both English and French.
"Why are there Depends on my bed?" I asked my mother, completely mortified that my boyfriend now thinks that I have major bladder problems, considering the fact that we were just at the doctor's office in Paris from my urinary tract infection. "Oh, I read last week's post and you were complaining about having soiled "unmentionables", so I figured these would come in handy!" she said, clearly proud of herself that she provided a clever solution to a problem that I have over five years ago, "These ones have pink and purple flowers on them too!" How dainty.
I opened the package and just lost it. Perhaps it was my exhaustion, or my mother's little face smiling back at me as I pulled out the larger-than-life, pink elastic paper panties, or Séb's gasp when he saw me holding them, but I couldn't hold back my laughter. Was it terribly funny? Not really, but this is exactly what I needed to break the tension of this harrowing weekend.
Séb and I are heading to the hospital now and then going straight to my grandparents for Easter dinner because the belief in my family, is that we'll all go into "starvation mode" if we skip a holiday dinner, especially a religious one. I hope you all are having a lovely Easter and I thank you for your warm comments, e-mails and messages.
