i am cool; rory told me so

the boys i had yesterday [missing my sailor son and my daughter]
Posted by Hello

i slaved over the hot stove yesterday, at my oldest son's house. it was just my youngest son, oldest son, two grandsons, and me...and john, micah, and tyler were supposed to be at the boys' other grandmother's house no later than 5 p.m. which was cool because i needed to go to the cemetery. since i went back to work i barely get over there anymore, and it was thanksgiving.

anyway i got the bird stuffed and in the oven at 11:12 a.m., which according to fanny farmer meant it would be done shortly after 3 p.m. it was a little later than that, and sometime after 4 p.m. we were stuffing the feast down our throats and john was rounding up his kids to go to long beach. i was doing some laundry there and rory and i stuck around a bit longer picking up a little bit, covering up the leftovers, and so on.

rory wasn't in the mood for the cemetery, but i insisted, although i didn't know where i'd find flowers. it turned out to be right around the corner from john's house...it was dark by now, after 5 p.m. for some reason [not coming from home as i always do, i guess] i took surface streets toward the cemetery, ending up on madrona approaching sepulveda blvd, where i screwed up by staying too far to the right.

but this was right where i grew up, on 228th street in torrance. i decided to go ahead and drive by "my" house and show it to rory. after 5:30 by now, and the gas light came on in the car, which is a rental. we took a little tour of the neighborhood and cut through new horizons to maple ave which turns into 235th street, where i got five dollars worth of gas. we had about 20 minutes to get to the cemetery by now.

so. east on 235th street to arlington, left on 237th to walnut, right to lomita blvd. i had assured the skeptic rory that we would make it to the cemetery, then we ran into this signal at walnut and lomita. there was no traffic on lomita blvd when we pulled up to the light, which was red for us and green with a white "walk" symbol for the non-existent cross traffic. i put the car into reverse and drove back and forth a couple times attempting to trip the signal. still red, still green and "walk" for lomita...a cluster of cars came through following the change of the light at western. and were gone. still no change for us.

i pulled out, out, out, and ran the light. it was ten minutes to six and we were five minutes away from the cemetery still. as soon as i pulled into the intersection, my 12-year-old son, rory, declared, with conviction, "you're cool."

as i told rory, i figured if i was pulled over for running the light i'd never get a ticket after i told the policeman i was running out of time to visit my daughter's grave. rory chuckled, repeated, "you're cool," the second time he has EVER awarded me that compliment. i do believe he said it at least three times within about 60 seconds of my running a red light that did not appear to want to change for us.

i don't believe i would have ever guessed in a million years that that's what it would take for my son to consider me cool. go figure.

we pulled into the cemetery and were stopped by security who said, "sorry, the park is closed." i said, "can i just go drop off some flowers at my daughter's grave?" and he said yes without any hesitation. it was very dark. bekah had flowers already which always is a comfort. quickly i told her what i needed to, amen, love you bekah, and out. rory and his cool mother who runs red lights.


rory took this from the car last night on the way to the cemetery...cool picture, huh? :)
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 11/26/2004 07:55:00 PM