Recently a New Year’s greeting came in the mail from my friend
Susan. It was a photo card of Susan and her hubby with their four
grandchildren. The message said,
”
A picture is worth a thousand Happy New Year greetings.
”
Oh, you got that one right, sister!
Recently a New Year’s greeting came in the mail from my friend Susan. It was a photo card of Susan and her hubby with their four grandchildren. The message said, “A picture is worth a thousand Happy New Year greetings.” Oh, you got that one right, sister!
Now I know your mind’s eye is visualizing a picture-perfect family composed and beaming at the camera. Right? Ha! Your mind’s eye is hallucinating because what Susan’s picture conveys is a “real” slice of life, which brings an old adage to mind … “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”
I’m sure this platitude wasn’t initially on Susan’s mind when she began preparing for that fateful portrait. Because she tried. She really, really tried. Just like you or me, Susan was intent on getting the family photo picture perfect. No slacker in the planning department, Susan had ordered attractive red plaid shirts for herself and her hubby with matching hats for each of the grandkids. Now how cute is that?
Well, I’ll tell you. It is cute and then some. In a snowy mountain scene, Susan, Les and their grandchildren are grouped in perfect Martha-Stewart-like-ambiance. At least THAT part went right. Les looks stoically into the distance (thinking, perhaps, about the long drive home?) as he holds Bella, 3, who apparently didn’t get the memo regarding the color scheme, mysteriously electing to wear pink with her red plaid hat. Bella stares calmly at the camera, her tiny forefinger thrust into her mouth.
Next to Les and Bella, Susan holds baby Kess, but Kess wants down and seems most determined to get there. Something is askew with Kess’s hat and Susan is attempting to squash the hat down into place, her outstretched arm obliterating her own face, allowing us just the teeniest glimpse of the laughter she’s unable to contain.
In front of Les, Riley, nearly 9, is messing with his hat, apparently trying to get the thing on or off – it’s not clear which – while younger brother Logan has rotated a quarter turn away from the camera where he does what comes naturally to 6-year-old boys: demonstrate his impressive “razzberries” technique, spewing out at no one in particular.
The photo is legendary, which is why Susan is one of those girlfriends who’s a real keeper. I am blessed with several of those good kinds of girlfriends. That’s right; they’re the ones who let loose and laugh when life starts lobbing those lemons.
Maybe I gravitate toward folks who find humor in tough situations because I inherited this gene from my mom. Now there was a lady who took life’s bitter lemons and not only make lemonade, she twisted the peel into fancy twirls and plopped them into a dry martini. Well, no, I just made that up about the martini. She was more of a whisky sour girl, but you get my drift.
So when my mother was diagnosed at the tender age of 64 with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, a very unfunny illness, she sucked it up like any rational person would and concluded her doctor was nuts. “I don’t like him very much,” she sniffed as we exited his office. “And besides that, he doesn’t know very much about medicine.”
And although my mother did have Alzheimer’s, she rode it out with grace and and good humor. Handed the bitterest of lemons she still found the tiniest kernel of humor in her predicament. “I don’t care about getting older anymore,” she told me once. “I can’t remember how old I am anyway, so who cares?”
But it was when she was getting ready to attend her 50th high school class reunion that she really shined. She needed a new dress. Just in case. If her previously high-functioning brain threw her a curve at the reunion, she wanted to be looking good.
So we went shopping. Mom picked a couple of prospects off the rack, and we headed to the fitting rooms where I waited on a chair outside her cubicle. After some rustling around, she opened the door. She looked fantastic in a jazzy little black number with vibrant slashes of red and purple running throughout the fabric. And she loved it. Retreating back inside to try on the other dress, more rustling of hangers and fabric ensued. A few moments later the dressing room door popped open again, and there stood my mother – wearing the exact same dress! Huh???
“I don’t think I like this dress as much as the first one,” she declared, checking herself in the mirror. “Um, Mom, that IS the first one,” I ventured nervously, whereupon she exploded with laughter at her mistake. Now that, my friends, is how to make some incredibly good lemonade.
