Counting down the hours now...
And I went out on a double-header of meals with Okaasan. Lunch AND dinner.
Got power knowing the end is nigh!
Had hoped my friend and her baby might be here at lunchtime to ease the conversation load, but a sudden snow shower kept her home till later in the afternoon.
So lunch with Okaasan: easy reheated curry and chat about knives and forks and wartime supplies and crabs.
Then Okaasan branched off into a new tale about how "rough" wartime soap was on the face, it had bits in it and that scratched the face...
I sat there thinking: "funny, haven't heard this story before, wonder why she is talking about this directly from food topics etc"...and then I REALIZED!
Just before lunch Okaasan had gone to wash her face and hands in the bathroom, where the past week or two I've had out a nice soap someone gave me...and it has seeds in it, I forget what, but little brown seeds...and yes, they do come out onto your skin.
With washing hands or body it doesn't matter - a little skin rubbing - but on face I'm sure it isn't nice.
How interesting! I'm pretty sure that the just before lunch face washing stayed in Okaasan's mind, but somehow slipped into her usual wartime food/father brought crab/food shortages chat.
Maybe of course there WAS rough soap wartime in Japan, and the rough soap in our bathroom triggered her memory of that. Interesting.
My friend and her baby finally made it to my home mid-afternoon - she's lived in Sapporo 3 weeks now, but this is the first time weather and our schedules actually fitted to get her here.
We had coffee and cake time, while the cats bolted for safety at their first encounter with a human baby sound, and later Okaasan got introduced - which she enjoyed....chance to coo over a baby and it set her off on "when I had babies I didn't go out with them for months and months cos of infections"....tales which she told me again and again all over dinner.
And so.
He is home tomorrow.
And.....
...this afternoon in a quiet moment I....
BOOKED MY AIR TICKETS TO THE UK THIS JULY!!!!!!
NOW I am really going. July 25 to August 11. 17 whole wonderful days.
It's my reward for the past 2 weeks of Oyomesanning.....well, I am paying for it...so it's my reward to myself.
Oh yes. ;-)
That's a reward?
ReplyDeleteJust kidding.
;)
Love the stories. How interesting that the soap jogged such a memory.
I've been feeling really guilty lately, about how I was with NTG and her alz, and the time I stuck my tongue out at her, right when she had a lucid second.
I feel bad for taking to heart what my grampy said about her having never really loved me, even before alz, and this influenced me not to fly back for her funeral 8 months after my grampy died.
You are so patient and good to your MIL.
I feel like I was a bad granddaughter after reading your posts.
Dammit!
;)
Congratulations on your tickets to the UK, and on hanging in there through your "solo flight" with Okaasan despite the difficulties.
ReplyDeleteThey say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I'm sure absence + Okaasan makes the heart even MORE glad when the husband is home. He will doubtless get a very happy reception.
I hope so! (but actually...I'm just off skiing today, so he'll come back to only Okaasan...;-)
ReplyDeleteI good reward for all your hard work. I hope the phantom bell ringer will disappear now the three of you are there.
ReplyDeleteI hope you get some quality time together for a day or so.
And count down those days till you reach olympic mayhem cream egg land!