First of all I wish all my readers and their families a joyful New Year. If you’re traveling or partying, be safe.
Cold has descended upon the Arizona desert and I’ve sequestered myself indoors all day, whining as if I was in the more brutal parts of the country instead of sitting in sunshine and current temps of 51 degrees. But it was 32 degrees before the sun was up this morning, which is outrageous behavior for old man winter in Yuma! All I could think of was “my poor tomato plant”!
Actually, I’ve been thinking about a lot lately but just not communicating it to these pages. This is not a year I’ll be sorry to see go; indeed, the past three years we haven’t been sorry to see go—ever hopeful that a new year will bring better possibilities. That hasn’t seemed to happen. This year saw both Marc and I lose our fathers. This year became more of an economic struggle with the two of us only working a total of four months and being unemployed once again.
The year ends with some heartache at having my mother here. Her adjustment to Dad’s death just hasn’t seemed to kick into place as yet and my role now has been to be the “mother” to the Mother. It is uncomfortable and alien for me to say the least. I never aspired to be a day-to-day mother at 61—indeed, sometimes I anguish enough over my own kids and their tumultuous lives, let alone having to try and now direct my mother’s life; tend to all her business like it is my own, and ferret out ways to keep her occupied and from further wasting away. I feel sorry for her that she can’t be more; I feel guilty that I expect that out of her when she has never known anything different than caring for my father. What more can I possibly do for this impossibly sad woman? The question haunts my days and follows me into miserable and sleepless nights.
So don’t come around the Duske household saying “Happy New Year”, OK? One follows another as if falling into a tragic abyss and I don’t know when they will end.
Come out warm again Ol Sol, for you are one of the few things I count on. If a person can’t be warm in Yuma in winter, where can they be warm?
