Dad’s New Mango Orange Sticky Rice Long-Sleeved Shirt

The Point of Writing this Is … There is No Point (Day 23)

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too.” ― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

This year, my goal is to be the subject of a Thought Experiment whereby I will randomly capture thoughts each day,one hour at a time.

Why?

Life is random, isn’t it?

Friday, October 11, 2013

Has it really been 13 days since I last logged onto Medium. Time has flown by and I have no record of the past two weeks.

Today is the beginning of the Thanksgiving Day Long Weekend, and Beverley and I have just returned from dinner at Funky Thai.

This was the same restaurant that my sister, Selina, brother-in-law,Nicholas, and Beverley had arranged and celebrated our parents’ 50th Wedding Anniversary.

That was November 11th, 2011. Almost two years ago.

We laughed a lot that evening. We were convinced that the following year, we would come back to celebrate their 51st Anniversary.

But August 5th, 2012 marked the end of a chapter in Mom’s life.

And her funeral on August 8th marked the beginning of a new chapter in our own lives.

For the next year, I believed in synchronicities. The unusual blooming of flowers seemed to coincide meaningfully with our Birthdays and Anniversaries.

As I scan my time-stamped Facebook album, I see that we celebrated Selina’s & Nicholas’ Anniversary at Funky Thai on August 18th, 2012.

I also see that we celebrated Dad’s Birthday on October 20th, 2012, also at Funky Thai.

During each of those times, Cindy, the restaurant manager, took photos of the five of us. Cindy’s own mother had passed away from Cancer.

We were back once again at Funky Thai. But this time, there were six of us.

I happened to be sitting on the same chair and on the same table as I did at Mom’s and Dad’s 50th Wedding Anniversary Party. Today, Hannah was treating all of us to a joint Family Thanksgiving and Dad’s Birthday Celebration dinner.

Dad looked very dapper in his crisply laundered new shirt. I had not seen him in a shirt of that colour before. Hannah must have picked it out for him.

I noticed that Funky Thai had a new “Mango Sticky Rice” dessert on the menu. So, we nicknamed Dad, “Mr. Mango Orange Sticky White Rice”.

We noticed Dad’s new hair cut. He said that he had been seeing a new hair stylist. He was very unhappy with the previous stylist because each time he had asked for his hair to be cut shorter, she told him that he was too “old” to wear it too short.

Beverley remarked that all he needed to do now was to spike the middle of his hair, and he and I would have the same hair cut.

I laughed.

We spent the evening laughing.

We laughed when the waitress returned the teapot with hot water but had not changed the tea bag — the same tea bag which had brewed tea for the six of us during the past two hours.

We laughed when Cindy took a photo of all of us seated against the same window where mom had sat with us before.

We laughed when the deep fried bananas came, and the family at the next table said that they wanted to join us for dessert at our table. They were celebrating their mother’s birthday today, as well as their father’s birthday from last week.

We laughed as we were leaving, and we indicated to the family that we had taken care of their bill, and that they were free to leave anytime without checking in with their waitress. They all had a good laugh.

As we prepared to go our separate ways, we hugged Hannah and each other.

Earlier in the afternoon, I had met with Selina at her home. Counting this hug, I had hugged her twice today. I must make time to hug her more often.

In the dimly lit parking lot, it was good to see Dad laughing in his new Mango Orange Sticky Rice Long-Sleeved shirt.