Sure, health is important but if you’ve always lived with a chronic condition and/or a progressively degenerative one like I have, hearing this most common of platitudes leads to a waxy bummer build-up in the psyche. It is no pleasure to ponder the possibility that you regard me as having…nothing. Nor do I want to reprise my role on Emotional Labor: Special Cripple Unit where I tell myself you don’t actually mean anything bad by that. I would prefer instead that people express gratitude for what health they have (I know health is a nice thing!) without making such a sweeping generalization about what a good quality of life requires.
And she had made sure the door was locked. She stood there, watching the gray-blue paint and listening to what was happening from within. At first, nothing. Then a murmuring confusion, then a rapid rise in decibel levels, quickly becoming Frank’s singular baritone summoning Gretchen. It didn’t occur to anyone that it was anything but an accident.Alice’s schoolteacher handwriting greeted Gretchen when she flipped through the mail that evening. It was a floridly pious Mother’s Day card with a letter enclosed. Her mother must have sent it right after Gretchen had called about the board meeting fiasco. Oh Alice, Gretchen snorted pleasurably. I couldn’t have picked a better card myself.
I’m FEDup with aiming way too low. There was no way Alice had fit all that into one suitcase. Gretchen accepted the coffee but waved off questions about her sore throat. She rocked thoughtfully as Alice fretted about her being too ill for the clinic visit later in the day. “Mom? You’re looming.”