It's in the little things

It's really been a pretty good week. Pedro leaves, and the stress level in most of us goes way down. Cely's attitude swings back towards the positive. Most of us relax. We have one more week before KC and I move out . . .and P comes back. It's the last shot for him here my dad says. I hope that's true. And . . .I hope it works. Or at least I try to hope for that.

I've spent quite a bit of time with Cely the past few days since KC was working her 48 shift at the Children's Home. Cely helped me for hours at Ascension on Thurs. She even was amazingly handy in putting together a bookcase with me. Sometimes she is so much fun; I just love to hug her. My maternal instincts seem to emerge around her. Last night we watched Angels in the Outfield together. I couldn't help but bawl as little Joseph Gordon-Levitt expresses his wish for a family as he waits in foster care for his dad to get his life together. Cely didn't cry that I could see, but I wanted to ask her so badly if that's how she and Pedro used to feel: that longing for family and wish for a miracle. When and where did she, at least, get the courage to let another family love her?

Yesterday Sonny--the Irish setter/spitz mix dog that Pedro and Cely picked out last week--came here. Apparently he couldn't come to our house till he had been neutered. Poor guy. But he's here now--and he's a beautiful dog. I think he's about 8 months old. So far he appears to be very nervous and shy. His reluctance to let any of us touch him reminds me of Pedro. Makes me wonder if the two of them will be able to bond, or if they will be like ships in the night, merely passing by on their parallel paths. My hope is that P won't be too lazy, and that he will invest a lot of his bored life into getting to know Sonny to help heal them both. Maybe that's too much to hope for.

Another seemingly small moment that still touched my heart was a story my mother shared with KC and me yesterday. The three of us were watching Dad approach Sonny, and Mom suddenly turned to KC and me and told us the story of a collie named Pooch that her family owned when she was tiny. She described how protective the collie was, how when someone would drive up to her family farm, that dog would circle around all the kids in the family (ultimately there were 10 of them) and eye the stranger as if to say, "I know where all these kids are, and you aren't getting any of them." Mom said something about Sonny's hair and face reminded her of Pooch.

KC and I both exclaimed how adorable we thought Mom must have been as a little girl, how we would have just loved her tiny self and would have hugged her all the time just because she was so cute and needed protection. And she laughed and said she used to frustrated her mom so much when she was little because evidently, Mom liked dirt. Yep, you'd never guess it, but Mom was a dirt-eater and lover as a gal. At first, KC and I were very confused--wait, Mom, you liked to EAT . . .DIRT?? "Yes," she giggled. "And I liked it so much that I convinced Kathy and JoAnn (the 2 sisters closest in age to her) to eat dirt too. I always had to get dewormed, but I just loved it. My mom would see our mouths ringed with brown, and she would say, 'Are you eating dirt again?' And I'd shake my head and say, 'No!'" It was impossible not to burst out laughing at the thought of our mother not only eating dirt, but loving it and convincing her sisters to eat it, too. All these years of knowing my mom, I never would have guessed this about her. Most of her childhood memories express great sadness or bitterness.

I love my family.