When Things Get Back to Normal Read Online Free PDF Page A

Irish Cream, I confided to her that I am considering becoming a missionary. I explained that I now have this overpowering need to immerse myself in a great cause. “A missionary?” she hooted, waving her empty glass in my direction. “
You
? A missionary?” She leaned close to me as though she were going to impart a great secret and said in a very earnest voice, “Jean, you are the god-damnedest most selfindulgent woman I have ever known,” and without further preamble she launched into the reasons why I am singularly unsuited to tracking down pagans in the bowelsof Africa. She demanded to know how I am going to survive in the jungles and deserts without my foaming baths, my satin lingerie and my designer perfume. Then she, a confirmed atheist, asked how I could be so arrogant as to presume the Lord would choose me to do great deeds in far away places?
    She’s right, of course. I was being presumptuous. And I certainly do like my material comforts. Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of having a Popemobile shuttle me back to the Holiday Inn at the end of a hard day on the missionary hustings. I guess my spirit wants to minister to the needy in foreign lands, but my flesh wants pigskin gloves and wine in crystal goblets. A. said I should concentrate on what I do best – my writing.
    I wonder if she’s right. Will writing give me the centre I now crave?
JANUARY 9 –
Thursday
    My body, my heart and my soul ache for things to return to normal. I find peace nowhere. I find comfort nowhere. I find stability nowhere. I think of myself as walking endlessly on a winter plain, my feet and hands numbed from the frost, my heart searching for a shelter I know no longer exists. I want someone to be at the end of the journey to feed me warm soup and gently remove theboots from my swollen feet. But there is no one waiting at the journey’s end. Indeed, there is no journey’s end.
    A recent acquaintance, whom I met because of our mutual newly widowed state, said she needed her husband for an anchor. I need you for a harbour. Are we saying the same thing, or is there a difference?
JANUARY 10 –
Friday
    The bathroom leaked through the ceiling this morning, and the clothes dryer won’t heat. Worst of all, the lights in the driveway shorted last night on account of the heavy frost, and I’m told I can’t get them fixed until spring. How I hate the responsibility of keeping a house in running order! Did you hate it also? Say no. It would lessen my guilt if you would say it didn’t bother you at all.
    Speaking of guilt. The two saddest words in the English dictionary have to be “if only.” If only . . . if only . . . you’ve no idea how often in the course of a day, or, more aptly, in the course of a night, I whisper these words. If only I had been more insistent that you quit hockey, get a physical, take life easier. If only I had more fully appreciated your contribution to the quality and quantity of my life.
    Still, I have a lot for which to be grateful. We truly were each other’s best friend. The other day, someone commentingon our closeness said we were two halves joined as one. Actually, I’d say we were two wholes joined together to make a larger whole.
    My mother and father were married friends. I remember a day when my father was out of work and job hunting. My mother and I were looking out the window, awaiting his return. Finally we saw him come trudging up the laneway. His jacket was slung over his shoulder, and he was gripping the neck of it as though that were the only thing keeping him upright. My mother sighed and whispered, more to herself than to me, “The poor devil, I hope he found work. For
his
sake.” I’m certain I never managed that much selflessness.
JANUARY 11 –
Saturday
    Last night I couldn’t sleep, but that in itself is nothing new. I walked the floor as usual and then about three a.m. I went into