Several remarkable things happened today – at least, remarkable in my little world. The first was as I was watering our plants. My aunt pointed out that it was just starting to rain, which is a rather silly time to water, but I pointed out in turn, that one could not know how much it would rain. Perhaps not enough. Anyhow, I was watering a tomato plant, when lo! There was an actual ripe tomato peeking out from under the leaves. Tom and I planted these tomatoes in the spring, and I was hoping at least one would ripen for him. It did, and it was remarkably delicious.Then …. Our pastor, Father Michael Ryan came to visit Tom, and got to meet his little namesake, Michael Ryan the cat. They got on well, which was a relief, because while Michael is a lovely cat, he has moody moments and can be quite rude.
Then ….. the most remarkable of all! I told you that since the last chemo, Tom’s food tastes had radically altered, so that he no longer liked his old favorites, and now liked foods that he would normally have spurned. Much the same has happened with movies. He and Rebecca liked to watch dark, brooding, intellectual, somewhat pervy movies – movies that I have to read my book in the other room for. (Rachael once told her grandfather, that the only movies I liked were Shirley Temple movies. This is not true, of course. I do like them quite a lot, but they are not the only ones.) Tom disliked romantic comedies altogether, and spurned anything “sappy.” Well, the movies he previously has liked are all too oppressive. Even Monty Python is oppressive.
So we brought out all our cheeriest movies. They were not cheery enough. I timidly suggested “Pollyanna” – a movie he never would have watched in previous days, and one of my all time favorites. I have watched it zillions of times and cried every time, of course. I was amazed when he said, “Okay, let’s watch it.” We did, and he loved it. This is truly remarkable.
