Yesterday I was driving down 12th street after my allergy shot and just before PT. In my heart I could hear an invitation being expressed...."Call your old buddy Dwain Preston and have lunch. Valentine's Day this year might just be a little lonely for him." So I was happy when he answered the phone, and we worked it out to meet after my radiation and his memorial service at the little home-cookin' type restaurant that we now have in Quincy called Nothin Special. Dwain and I co-sponsored the Quincy Notre Dame Student Council before I left QND in 1984. We had so much fun. Dwain was a very good English teacher years before I went back to school to become an English teacher. I learned a lot by watching him. Well, we met and had a fabulous home cooked soup and split a club sandwich. We talked mostly about his family. Sadly, his wife Regina recently passed on in her sleep (from the heart attack she had always predicted--she always said she would go quickly in her sleep, and so she did). Dwain and Gina have 4 grown daughters with 11 grandchildren, but none live in Quincy. Fortunately, he is very close with all of them, and he beams when he talks about their lives and their work and their children. So I had a 2-hour lunch on Valentine's Day with my old buddy Dwain, and listening and speaking with him were my "pay it forward" gifts of the day. I think we will do this again sometime. He is in his 70's now and retired from QND for two years. He waits for the phone to ring, hoping for a sub job for the day. If that doesn't happen, he works on writing projects he has going.
Some of our talk was philosophical. He wanted to know why I thought there are now so many lapses in morality in the teaching profession. So I told him what I thought. Since he is a writer, I wonder at the time if my expressed opinions might show up somehow, somewhere, sometime.
Mario and I topped off the day with Mexican food at our favorite restaurant, Maya, with our friends Joyce and Marty Stevens. We had some laughs, and we shared the photo albums of birthdays and baptisms.
Today I have my 25th radiation, then I get my once-a-month massage. (YEAH) This evening, Mario and I will meet Carrie's gang at church for Mexican night at our No Fish Fish Fry. We are hoping for more attendance.
I am tired, but I am trying very hard not to complain or get in a rut. That is why I keep moving when I can. I am reading some good books, and this morning I found a good quote from a little book Joyce gave me for my birthday. It is from Pope John XXIII, a little book called "A Joyful Soul."
The prayer for peace that rises from the cradle in Bethlehem is a prayer for kindness of heart, for true brotherliness (and sisterliness!), and for a determination to seek sincere cooperation, rejecting all those destructive elements that we call by their true names: pride, greed, hard-heartedness, and selfishness.
I told Dwain yesterday that I still have a sad heart because of the pain that exists in relationships within my extended family. But it has been my goal throughout this cancer treatment to finally let go of any responsibility I have felt for fixing any of this. I am just going to be nice. Just be nice. That is how I feel the best.
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1 comment:
You sound like my Mom. She always says "if someone is nice to me, I'm nice to them," and MOVE ON!
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