Part 2: Chapter 5

Gals Group

Photo by Barbare Kacharava on Unsplash

Saturday, April 18, 2020

        Another 6 a.m. Saturday morning gals group serves as a sign that time is passing. All the other days, except for Sundays, seem to run together with endless monotony, futile efforts to maintain order, and no hope of change.
	My immediate neighbor, Auntie Bev, starts our group with prayer and a list of things that bless her. She enjoyed watching the children perform a song on Zoom for Easter Sunday. She liked how each tiny screen showed a window into each child’s home. She appreciated the pastor’s message and the truths communicated. 
	Thanks to Dianne Young, I cannot agree with Auntie Bev because all I can do now is count the pastor’s slurp-clicks.
	Auntie Bev next says she’s so thankful nephew Gilbert has come to stay with her. He repaired her dishwasher last week. He has also taken up painting to pass the time. Last night, we spotted him with his easel, painting the pink and gold sunset that was clearly visible from Auntie Bev’s west-facing front yard. While Gilbert becomes an artist, Auntie Bev has taken up baking. She says we may come by to get some anytime, in fact, she asks us to please come, or she will end up looking like “the Micheline man” by the time quarantine is over.
	Auntie Bev then mentions how remarkable it is that simple everyday workers have now become heroes: grocery store checkers, nurses, policemen, EMTs, and delivery workers. Here they are risking their lives, daily serving grumpy, demanding, and rude people. How very true, I think, and then wonder why she didn’t include mothers in that list.
	Wish I was more like Auntie Bev, seeing and appreciating the beautiful things in life. Wish her blood was in mine, but as she is auntie only in name and not in blood, see that I shall have to work very hard to see the glass half full. Wonder how this is done. Recall a story in the book Tattoos on the Heart where one Los Angeles ex-gang member got a job and was finally able to feed his family. When he got home from work, he would sit and watch them enjoying their dinners before eating his own.
	Definitely do not enjoy watching my children eat. Children arrive at dinner table, see food, and then say things like, “I don’t want fish! Mama, you know I don’t like fish. Why would you serve me fish?”
	Believe that, in another time period, children would’ve been smacked for speaking like this to their parents. But as this is the twenty-first century and calm reasoning is the accepted method, feel myself tied up and angry.