I feel like every time I mention how happy I am the gods smite me a little, so in the interest of going unsmited I will just say that today is another lovely day. And it's a Friday. And my plans for tonight involve heavy drinking, hopefully with a view. Draw your own conclusions, please.
**
**
I called my mom last night. She and my father went to their fortieth high school reunion last weekend. "Even when I was your age," she said, "I couldn't imagine being forty, much less being forty years out of high school." Someday, if I am lucky, I will be forty years out of high school. A strange thought.
I am convinced that my parents were the best-looking people at the reunion, by far, but my mother is by no means convinced of this. When my mom was my age, she was GORGEOUS. She looked like Grace Kelly's better-looking sister, I swear. I have seen the photos. If I were as pretty as my mom . . . well, probably I wouldn't be very nice, so maybe we are all better off. But my mom has never thought of herself as attractive. She didn't think so when she was a stunning 27-year-old, and she doesn't think so now that she is a beautiful 58-year-old. I hope my father tells her so, from time to time.
Mom told me this reunion story: Two of their classmates, John and Linda, got married after high school. (I met John, years ago, and I was a little surprised to hear that he had a wife. He did not have the demeanor of a straight man.) Linda died about ten years ago, of cancer, and Mom said that John was the perfect husband throughout her illness, and that she had never seen a husband grieve more than John grieved over Linda.
But John brought his new "companion" to the reunion. And the two of them danced, right there in the Civics Center, in the heart of Alabama. Gadsden High School, class of '63.
My reaction to this story was something like, "Bless his heart! What a brave and beautiful thing!" but I don't think it went over so well with the class of '63. They claimed they felt that he had somehow betrayed Linda. They were upset, they said, that his "companion" seemed a bit young. (Mom said that the companion looked as young as my brother looks. My brother is 24 but looks 30 if a day.)
Actually, I don't think my mother was so much bothered by the spectacle; she likes gay men. "They always have such lovely house plants," she says. But my gentle, retiring father was bothered. I said to Mom,
"You're lucky Brother and I didn't turn out any freakier than we did. What if I came out of the closet? I don't think Papa* could handle it."
"Well . . . "
"Better me than Brother, though, right?"
"Right."
Well, here's hoping.
*Yes, I call my father Papa. That is his name.
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