“Goddamn Attitude”

This is a long story but it’s “in the moment” and I just need to get a few notes down.

I’m in Arizona with my sister as my mom, well, dang, what do you call it: transitions into her next phase? You get the idea.

A longtime and dear friend of the family got me and sis on the phone and, in his usual blunt and crass way, he tells it like it is. He told us about how important my dad and mom have been in his life but that even when my dad passed away five years ago, my mom was the same.

This isn’t verbatim, but…

“You know, Dede was the same then when Tom passed away. It’s that goddamn attitude of hers!” he shouted as sis and I laughed hard but silently in the car listening to someone we’ve known our entire lives.

“You know, always upbeat, always a positive perspective.”

“Doesn’t she know we’re trying to suffer and grieve over here? We’re having a hard time with this and yet, there she is again with that goddamn attitude.”

Dear friends,

If I, when my days are coming to an end, can be so fortunate and lucky and blessed to have longtime friends berate my existence and “complain” about how upbeat, positive, and endlessly optimistic I was in my life, I have lived my life to the fullest.

She gives me even more energy and power, conviction and purpose, to live that life, to share that life with others and bring them up to the place where others whine into car speakers about my “goddamn attitude.”

I’m filling this under “Health” and “Joy.”

Photo by averie woodard on Unsplash