‘It was one of those things,’ I explained to friends, ‘that either becomes a tragedy or an intense hassle.’ Only you never know which, en route through the moment, so you try your damnedest to let the hassle part wash over you. Just in case.

The worst didn’t happen this time, and at one point I confess I did succumb.  9:35 on a Saturday, 2 scant hours’ sleep after a night in the ER with the pneumonia-and-possible-other-awfulness-afflicted elderly parent; ferrying the youngest to her Irish Dance performance.  Discovery on arrival: she has left the poodle socks, which I painstakingly (and with pride at the forththought despite the circumstances) set out at 4 am before sleeping). Temper flares.  She evinces some minor remorse.  Teen and I dash off to retrieve missing item before performance (“OMG POODLE socks,” says the sister.  For once, I am completely in line with the perennially sardonic teen-tone).  All ends well (timely-retrieved socks pictured, with fellows). 

Here in the week after, all has also come out ok on the pneumonia front.  Dad is back at home, breathing better, up and about, sharing annecdotes with my partner over an unexpectedly casual dinner (my mother’s table, strewn with take-out Chinese cartons – a “once-in-a-lifetime photo op,” says the teen – although I neglected to take it, in relief at the relieved and casual atmosphere).

Everyone else is also breathing better, although our breaths are bated with the bitter foretaste of days to come.  Dad may last a long time yet, and of course one lives (when one is reminded to remember to live) with the knowledge that tragedy can strike anyone at any time.  It is not necessarily my father’s departure which will send us into that anticipated spiral.  But we have all again realized, in the full flood of forgotten socks and all the rest of the silliness of the everyday, that our most transcendent truths are temporary, on an individual basis.  It is nice to have poodle sock retrieval to occupy oneself.  It is nice to waste resources on a less-than-incredibly-healthy-and-homecooked dinner.  It is nice to have a weekend without either tragedy or hassle on the near horizon.  To be, temporarily, short-sightedly, obliviously, all-too-humanly …. happy.