For me writing is a Sunday drive with no specific direction
in mind. I cruise along, mindful of my intended passenger/reader (that would be
you), asking “Are we there yet”? But still, I selfishly enjoy the journey for
its own sake. I’m just in it for the moment and somewhere in the myriad of
left, right, and U-turns encountered on my keyboard, I chance upon that
intersection where that one feeling that’s longing to be expressed meets my
fingertips and…
I find the destination I didn’t know I was headed for.
Last January, my youngest and only son, Richard and his fiancée,
Lynn tied the knot. Richard, never one to rush into things, had taken 12 years
to figure out what Lynn had known in the first 12 minutes… that they were made
for each other. For a really bright guy, my son is sometimes a bit slow. But
it’s an inherited trait that I believe comes from his mother’s side.
Deb will say it’s all my fault, of course. But she’ll have
to make that argument in in her own blog.
My somewhat global family arrived in various stages for the
wedding, with Jen & Phil from Tasmania just before Christmas and Cathy
& Sam coming in from Texas a week before the nuptials. It was a great, if
somewhat hectic, holiday season that I’ll always cherish. And, trust me; it
gave me scads of new material to
write about.
One evening I watched as Phil & Jen passed the time by
playing Blackjack with Jen’s grandmother, Gert. It was an especially poignant
moment for me and it took me back to September of 1985, when Hurricane Gloria
downed power lines across the state, leaving us without electricity for 11
days. It was during that period when Gert, in an effort to keep them engaged, first
taught Jen & Rich how to play Blackjack.
She explained the rules and helped them shuffle and deal,
patiently waiting as they tallied the points in their hands. It was a simple
enough game for the kids to grasp with the objective of getting as close as
possible to 21 points without going over. More than 21 points meant you were busted and you lost. Simple, to the point,
and no second chances like in draw poker. Blackjack meant you placed your bet
and played the hand you were dealt, made your choice to hit or stand and let the
chips fall where they may. I didn’t realize then the significance of those
rules and how they would relate to our lives in general.
And now I watched quietly as Phil & Jen set about to
teach her grandmother how to play Blackjack. You see, Gert had survived a
stroke a year or two back, and the result was she had lost some of her most
precious skills. Crosswords were now a struggle for her and simple arithmetic
was a total mystery. But somewhere inside, the significance of the cards
remained. And now it was Jen & Phil who worked to keep Gert engaged. They quietly coached as Gert would
struggle with the simple act of dealing the cards and they lovingly assisted
her as she counted the point values of her hand. And I wept a bit inside. Not
from sadness so much. But from the sheer magic of that moment, when a gift
given over a quarter century past was now being returned in such a beautiful
way.
We all play the hands we’re dealt. And sometimes it’s not
about the winning, but the fact that we just keep playing, no matter what.
(And yes, dear passenger/reader, we’re finally there!)