Who Can Predict?

1994 - proud parents of a new camper and truck

Miracle of miracles, my father did an about face yesterday, and 'came up' with the idea of staying at the nicer respite facility for a month.  Oh man!  It takes a village to help someone age with dignity.  As  his visit there gets closer, we're lining up phone calls and visits from people he respects, to reassure him.

I'd penned this post before I learned this  good news. It's my little story about the folly of planning and predicting...

When I was first widowed, a man, a friend of my husband, helped me out.  How this all came about was ass backward.

This man was a hot shot in the mergers and acquisitions world of New York.   My late husband and he had met 24 years ago, in a basement room where folks who have messed up bad meet.  This man had arranged a daily morning meeting with the local church because weekly meetings elsewhere were just too, well, weekly.  The church was close, ultra convenient for my husband.  He went daily until three days before he died.

This man annoyed the heck out of my husband.  Full of advice, which is a complete no-no at these meetings. While my husband didn't share the confidences of attendees, I did hear plenty about the personalities.  Would you believe, years later, I would learn that my husband had annoyed the heck out of him, too?

I didn't know the guy.  About a year before my husband died, he lent this guy our truck.  He needed it to move something.  Oh, it was O.K. our camper was strapped in, like you see in the picture.  He borrowed it for a few days.  Then he decided to park it in a parking garage for cars only.

I was livid. At my husband for lending the truck to this idiot!  Livid because he didn't call the insurance company to replace the crushed camper.  Instead he made an arrangement with the guy - his counseling services in lieu of payment.  His what??? From this guy?  Yes, whether I liked it or not.  This is the deal my husband struck - this fellow would meet weekly with his soon-to-be widow for a year.  After that, she could decide when she no longer needed his counseling.

My husband knew something I didn't.  In the fifteen years he and my husband had irritated the heck out of each other, they had also helped transform each other from self-seeking, self-centered addicts into loving husbands and friends.  This man had transitioned out of the dog-eat-dog world of Mergers & Acquisitions, into the dog-feed-dog world of counselling.  He was now chaplain at a local hospital.

By the end of our first counseling session, I'd forgiven this man for weaseling out of payment for a new camper.  We met weekly.  He listened and bound my wounds.  His imprint remains.  I am indebted to him.

Who can predict?

   Good morning!  

   Every day something 

 Unexpected

  Happens.