To Recover
Monday, March 5, 2012
Puck decided to drink his mid-morning glass of water with a straw through the spout of Collette’s small silver teapot.
He had been gifted two items of clothing from Linnea-Irish over the weekend, including a discarded tie-dyed t-shirt written with Harry Potter phrases in black permanent marker. And an oversized MIZZOU Tigers gray sweat jacket, with the toggle missing form the zipper. Both of these he wore over his snazzy new skinny jeans for the entire day. He had the appearance of a rather docile monk more than anything else.
And Collette’s illness had downgraded to a bad cold.
At 11:55, Collette switched on a damp KMOX station for the Cardinal’s first windy game of the Grapefruit League in Jupiter, Florida.
Puck had one comment during the lunch hour…
“Wow. Your oranges are pretty good.”
He popped the little gold gems into his mouth.
They split up the last partial sleeve of Thin Mints for dessert.
Collette wrapped up fish tacos for the boys that evening, tilapia and cheddar in white flour tortillas. Puck and fish were never an ideal combination, but he pushed through the plate, good man, and completed the task. He did find it necessary to excuse himself halfway through the meal, however, to replace the small bandaid on his right pointer finger which he had somehow injured the previous morning. He also mentioned some more thoughts between chews under the hood of the MIZZOU sweat jacket…
“You know, Mama…. I need to start collecting money to give back to God… because every time… I go to Sunday School… for the offering… they ask me if I have any money… and I say I don’t have any.”
He then became distracted by the blue and white floss bracelet Linnea had made for him which he swung back and forth over his plate of white fish.
“This is the key to your heart, Mama. I have it so I can see what is wrong with your heart.”
“What’s wrong with my heart?”
“Hmmm… You got disease. And germs.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Hmm. Because you don’t work hard enough.”
“I work hard enough.”
“But, Mama. I mean sin. You don’t work hard enough to obey God. All people have disease and all people disobey God.”
Theology lesson for the evening…
OLeif returned with the collapsable ladder borrowed from the house – after chatting with Joe about jobs and web development – to inspect the attic for leaks. He had also picked up the rest of the week’s groceries, including new toothbrushes for the whole family and root killer for the basement drain, and Puck’s next small collection of library reserves, including a thick book about the “cult” of Lego and Bing Crosby’s “Legendy Years” album series.
“Death is fearful to the degree that it threatens to rob you of what you treasure most.”
– John Piper