and Sprinkles on Top

Keeping Busy

Posted on 05. Jun, 2010 by Deb in The Girl

In the middle of dealing with the arrangements for my mother’s funeral, I mentioned to a couple of friends that the best way for me to deal with my grief was to keep busy.  I need the moments of complete quiet wedged between talking with my friends and getting things accomplished.  Not that my mind doesn’t wander, but it’s just how I am wired.

This morning when I woke up, I dressed, ran by Starbucks for a cup of coffee and hit the grocery store.  In all my cooking last week, food had gone bad in the fridge and I had run out of some essentials like bread, fresh greens for the guinea pig, and fresh berries.  I have a meeting with a new client today, rescheduled from the middle of the week.

I called my father from the store to check on him.

He was up, had fed the cats and had begun a load of laundry.  We discussed the eating habits of his (very spoiled) inside cat, who consumes two or three cans of Fancy Feast a day as well as some impending work he needs done on his back.  We also discussed our schedules of the day, and included in his was his plan to begin washing all of the drapes, sheets, blankets, etc in the house – a spring cleaning that had been delayed because of my mom’s illness.

“That’s at least six or seven loads of laundry, Daddy.”

“Yep.  I know,” he said.  ” I need to keep busy.”

Yeah.  That’s where I got it from.

It doesn’t surprise me from him at all.  I think I got a bit of my work-a-holic work ethic from him.  And after hearing him and his three sisters talking yesterday, it surprises me less.

My father is one of four children born during the depression to a farmer.  When my father was eight, they were able to have a big enough place to require a tractor and have six milk cows.  His two older sisters were assigned to tend to the cows, and reported milking all six cows each morning before they would have breakfast and get ready for school.  My father began doing more than just tending crops with his dad – he starting working  on the tractor about that time.

Everyone deals differently.  I know we are all going to have moments when we crash and burn and completely fall apart.

But in the middle, I’m just going to keep busy.   Like father, like daughter.

Tags: death, family stories, grief, work ethic