1:56 p.m. - 2004-09-24
The rain is coming
My Flora Dora family had just gotten brave enough to take the hurricane shutters off their homes last weekend - after hits from charley, frances and a bit of ivan. Today, they are all putting them back up - restocking the water supply, buying or making ice - checking the batteries, filling up the gas tanks. I feel so bad for them. They are waiting for jeanne. I hear a bit of shakiness in my mother's voice. I hear my brother's resignation. I hear the fagitue in my sister's conversations - plus the deadbeat man she is still married too has a tendency to disappear when anything smelling of child-care or responsibility comes around. He has left her in the lurch again, despite a promise not to do so and has chosen to go on vacation the same week her day care providers (his parents, with whom she is on good terms) are going on vacation. So my parents will pick up the slack and watch the kids for a week. Because their father has chosen not to.
I know it is not my battle to fight. I just crumble when I talk to my nephew who tries so hard to emulate the image he has of his father - but that happens less and less frequently. It is already dawning in his very bright nine-year-old mind that his father is not choosing to be there for him, as his mother has. That his father doesn't deny himself anything, but has no time him. But my sister stalls with the divorce - she hasn't followed up with the lawyer. She is not ready.
In my world, today the most serious thing is that I have to put my sandals away and not see my blue painted toes for many months. It is back to pantyhose and shoes at work. I will count my blessings and pray for my familiy.
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