A year later

A little more than a year ago, I visited Son 1 and Wife in Chapter Two of this long post here, to bring them their Christmas presents and check in. Today I did the same thing. This is the first time I've seen Wife since that visit, and it's close to the first time I've seen Son 1, as well. (He came to town once during the summer for something else and asked if he could park at my apartment because parking was going to be hard to find. We probably exchanged a dozen words—surely no more than two dozen—while he was coming and going and using my bathroom.)

So I looked back at that post before writing this one, to compare and contrast. Sure enough, I can do both.

The clutter is still there. Wife's stuff still dominates the public areas. That part hasn't changed.

But her jewelry business, which was purely notional a year ago, seems to be actively under way. It's not hugely profitable yet—she said that she grosses around $1500 in most months before taxes or expenses (and about twice that in December because of Christmas orders). Assuming she gets to keep 60% of that, which sounds generous, that's still below the poverty line. But I had expected that she would never get it off the ground at all. She has had so many ideas in the past that went nowhere—I mean, after she spent the money to buy all the materials—that I assumed this would be just one more in the series. So I am happy to learn that I was wrong.

She seemed in good spirits. Oh, she told me the bad news about her latest medical diagnosis. (I don't remember what it was, but her medical diagnoses are always bad news.) She told me about the dental work that she needs, and how it won't be covered by insurance. Then she interrupted herself and said, "Not that you care about any of that!"

But the fact that she had absorbing work to do, and that it was paying her something, seemed to buoy her spirits.

The most remarkable contrast with last year—and I didn't realize how much of a contrast it was until I re-read last year's post—was that Son 1 stayed with us the whole time, actively engaged in the conversation. In fact, much of my conversation was with him primarily, and not her. And I stayed there not for one hour but for almost three. I don't know if he is happier at an existential level than he was last year, but he seemed happier at a pragmatic level. We talked about his work, and how similar it is to the work I used to do. (This was nobody's intention, but somehow just happened.) After he had told several stories about the mind-numbing bureaucracies at his work, I told him a story about how I had handled a particular bureaucratic problem once at my work. He grinned in all the right places, and then mused, "Gosh, I wonder if that's where I get my own approach to bureaucracy?" Wife chimed in, "Son 1, you get so much from your dad it's not funny!"

The original idea had been that Son 1 and I would go out to breakfast. He texted me first thing in the morning to say that both he and Wife seemed to be coming down with some kind of bug, so he suggested that we skip breakfast. But I could still come by to drop off Christmas presents. While I was there, I observed no signs of illness in either of them. So I don't know what that was about. But about the time I was ready to go anyway, Son 1 said he really needed to rest because he wasn't feeling great. We left open the possibility of having breakfast in a couple of weeks, which would be a big improvement over how little I've seen him in the last year.

We'll see.

But it was an unexpectedly pleasant and positive visit. I'm grateful for that.