The Economy of Love

I tend to worry about finances and used to go overboard with the budgeting. My frugality was at its height when I was a single mother of two teens. For instance, we had no toaster. Why buy a toaster when you can broil the bread and save on counter space? When my daughter suggested we buy a printer, I told her that holding tracing paper up to the computer monitor and drawing what she would have printed was good for her hand/eye coordination and added that in my day, we chiseled our own copies onto slabs of rock. 

© Teece Aronin - All rights reserved. For prints or image licensing inquiries, email chippeddemitasse@gmail.com.

Whenever money was tight, I would buy one stick of deodorant, one tube of toothpaste, one hairbrush, and so on to share between the kids' bathroom and mine. Mornings looked as though we'd all tumbled from train berths to the aisle below. The "aisle" was the hall outside the bathrooms. We'd dash in and out of the bathrooms and up and down the hall, passing, tossing, and flipping toiletries to one another. This, I told the kids, reinforced time management, sharing, and skills they could use if they ever ran away from home to join the circus.

Back then I was in love with a man I'll call "Luke" whose dog I'll call "Jackson." Jackson was a Great Pyrenees weighing about 150 pounds. At Luke's house one day, I became convinced that even something as sensitive as couples counseling can be achieved on the cheap with a smart and empathetic dog. 

 

Luke and I had been having an intense conversation. It wasn't a fight, but the issue was serious, and we were at odds. Luke was sitting in a dining room chair, and I sat, criss-cross applesauce, on the floor nearby. Luke suggested I leave so we could gain some perspective. Jackson, who'd been monitoring the situation, rose immediately, strolled over, and sat on my lap. He then laid his head on Luke's lap. It was as if he were saying, “Luke, I love you - Teece, SIT."

"I'll leave when you call Jackson off," I challenged. 

Luke said nothing, which was good because I didn't relish going home to two kids juggling toiletries and acting surly because we didn’t have a toaster or a printer. Then I asked, "Why do I get the rear end?"

Luke replied that I deserved the rear end, but he was smiling, and we were able to talk things through.

Jackson let me up and shot me a look, its message crystal clear: "Today I'm waving my fee. Next time bring plenty of kibble. And you did deserve the rear end.”

Paying a dog Jackson's size in kibble could get pricey. Then again, a dachshund could never have bridged that span on its own. Maybe it would have stacked up some pillows first. Then it could sit on my lap and still place its head on my lover’s.

That would have worked well, too.

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Playing the Sympathy Card

There are still days when I can't believe she's gone, my mother who was so full of life - until, suddenly, she wasn't. And one of the harshest truths about grieving is that no matter how debilitated, laid to waste, and torn apart you feel, the world keeps spinning.

Image by Teece Aronin

When my mother died, it was like being dropped in cold, waist-deep water and having to get ready to run. Run and get paperwork to the lender so I'd close on my new house on time; run and grab my laptop so I could pay the credit card bill before it was late; run and get the permission slip in to my kid's choir teacher so my kid could go on the class trip. First World problems, I admit, but still slogging, wet and weighty burdens when you're grieving. 

When all this was too much for me to bear, I'd play my sympathy card and pray that it bought me a little time, a small break, a minute to catch my breath.

I was pulled over by a State Trooper about a week after my mother's death, and I couldn't help it - as soon as my window went down, words came blurting out of me about how I'd just lost my mother, how I must have been distracted, and how I could barely think of my own name right now, much less read a speed sign. Before I knew it, I was on my way with a gentle warning to slow down. 

Then there was a request for paperwork from one of the outlying parties associated with the escrow on the house I was buying. "Please, may I have a few days on this? My mother died about a week ago." I can't remember the woman's exact reply but the gist was: "I'm sorry for your loss, but we really need this done as soon as possible." We ended up closing on the house two weeks early so I'm thinking maybe she's never lost a mother or maybe she never had a mother in the first place.

When the agent handling my homeowner's insurance made a similar request, I played my sympathy card again. I could hardly navigate my way through the grocery store, let alone whatever his request was. Steve (Free-thinking) Freemire leaped into action. He expressed his condolences on the death of my mother, very sincere ones, it seemed to me, and spoke of his own similar loss. Then he told me not to worry about the paperwork and that he would take care of it. Not even, "You Can Have a Few Days," but "I Will Do it For You."

He was one of the few people who not only accepted my sympathy card but placed a little kiss on its cover before offering it back. Those are the people you remember, the ones who when you're going through hell actually do something to help. 

It's been three-and-a-half months since my mother "went away," leaving me the world's oldest orphan. I don't use my sympathy card anymore because my mind is almost as normal now as it ever was, which many would argue, wasn't close to normal ever. 

But to anyone who accepted my sympathy card when it was all I had to offer, especially Free-thinking Freemire, thank you.