My Very Best-Friend

“Not only our actions but also our omissions become our destiny.”

-Heinrich Zimmer, THE KING AND THE CORPSE

Twenty-five years ago today:

June 25, 1987
Thursday

I didn’t forfeit the gym tonight. I went. I had to go.

I am finding it difficult to space the time to write in my journal now that I take the express bus to The City. I may switch to a weekly entry versus a daily one.

It was funny today. After work mom and I were going ‘gut-buster’ exercises together. She kept moving her body backwards and we laughed and laughed. That was so much fun.

My gym workout was fair.

Jeff called me from Hawaii. I wasn’t home when he called but he left a nice message on my answering recorder.

I gave Eileen a call. We confirmed our lunch date for tomorrow.

Mom and I went to Walgreen’s and decided to give PATUSCO’s another chance. It was a mistake, of course. The service was still very bad. They didn’t even wait on us for the longest time. So we left once again. I had to go back into the restaurant because I had left the car keys on the table. Oops. Mom and I had a good time though. We ended up going to SIZZLER again. That was fun. Mom is probably my very best-friend I’ve ever had in the whole world.

Every child should have a mother of such even temperament, her rare displeasure evidenced so gently that the effect was lasting. Thomas lived to please his mother and he was earnest in his pleasing. It was as if they both knew, thought they could not have known, that life was short, the moment fleeting.
-Abraham Verghese
CUTTING FOR STONE