The letter in the aisle and another award

I was sitting at a table in my favorite restaurant waiting for my friend - who is always late - to join me She's not fashionably late: she is inconsiderately late at times. I swear she'll be late for her own funeral someday.

Anyway, while I was waiting as usual, I saw a piece of paper in the aisle next to my table. It had been torn a bit from hurried waiter-feet and I could see something had been written on it. It was too big to be an order and it also didn't qualify as a menu. I like picking things up, much to my mother's dismay. I always pick pennies up that are lying in streets, seemingly abandoned by a wallet; I like to pick up shiny things because you never know when you might hit the jackpot in it being a diamond! And yes, I have been fooled by the occasional glued-to-the-ground-penny after which I tried to walk away as gracefully as an idiot possibly can.

So true to my nature, I leaned over and snatched up the piece of paper. Much to my delight it seemed to be a letter addressed to a "Raynard" from, I assume, a lady with the initials PB. Immediately scenes from Message in a Bottle flashed before my romantic eyes and I could already imagine me reuniting the two lovers and stand back with a sigh of happy jealousy at the sight of such sickening true love.

Anyway, the "letter" was written in a neat, firm handwriting and read as follows:


"My Raynard

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that love does not mean leaning and company doesn't always mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises;
and you begin to accept defeats with your head up and your eyes forward with the grace of a woman and not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans and the future have a way of falling down in mid flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you can endure, that you really are strong and you really do have worth.
And you learn
and you learn
and with every good bye
you learn.

PB."


Okay, maybe I should hold off on the whole happy ending part. And suddenly I felt like an intruder. And I felt a bit sad. So sad in fact that I got up and left the restaurant to go to my favorite place to "think" (which is just my word for crying a little in privacy because I'm absolutely hideous with my puffy cry-eyes) while I phoned my friend to cancel lunch.

I hate it when things don't work out the way they're supposed to. Or the way you hoped they would. It reminds me of granny Lil's story with her John.

She was married to a Hollander. His parents moved to South Africa years ago thanks to his mother's asthma and he never could get used to our culture. The two met through mutual friends and he pursued her like a dog on heat.

"I suppose it's because I wouldn't give him the one thing he got from every girl he looked at or touched," she smiled.

He wasn't an attractive man with his thick glasses and crooked nose, but there was something about the way he handled himself in the presence of women: a kind of nonchalance that drove them to the brink of … eh … tears ;)

They had two children together (two girls) and everything seemed fine on the surface. She was a brought up in a Calvinistic way: she loved her husband and God, was faithful to them both, treasured her family and was a good mother until the day her husband died. It was then that she found out he had been cheating on her for more than thirty years. He even had another family in Holland which he was supporting by sending them money she had to do without thanks to his "non-spending" nature.

"How naïve I was. My life was a lie. Everything I believed in was one big sham. I felt like I had woken up from a dream into a nightmare existence when I discovered the contents of his locked drawer. We hadn't shared the same bed in years, but I thought it was because of his bad back. Maybe I didn't want to see what was happening? I don't really know. All I DO know is that I wish he was alive so I could kill him myself."

Good thing he died in his sleep, the old bugger.

She kept their father's "betrayal" from her daughters (one disappointed bitter woman in the family was enough) who paid more and more worried visits to their mother.

"They wanted me to go see a shrink so I said I'll do that if they bought me another bottle of gin from the liquor store on the corner. They left shocked and pale, poor things. I never had a drink in my prissy life before that."

She takes a good long sip of her gin.

"I started painting again. Most of the first attempts found their last resting place in the dustbin and I eventually got so frustrated I decided to get someone to guide me to the path of enlightenment again," and she waved her hand in a dramatic gesture through the air. "That's how I met John."

John was her art teacher, you could say, and old enough to be her son. Good thing he wasn't because that would just be incest considering what they did every Monday and Thursday afternoon after the lesson at her house. Granny Lil may be old, but she proved that she was far from cold. She was no cougar (way too classy and old school for that) but she still had a firm arse.

If he looked anything like Kirby from Lipstick Jungle: hell, bring on gravity if older women is his thing.

"My paint strokes improved dramatically," she remembers with a far off look in her old blue eyes, "I felt inspired and alive again. He made me feel wanted, intelligent, beautiful. I became a woman again under his trained hands."

He was on his way to Johannesburg to an exhibition when he was hijacked and killed.

"Story of my life," granny Lil smiled with me clutching an already wet tissue in my fist. Anger just makes you strong and at her age all she wants to do is die with the memories of her one "sinful" act still in tact.

"I'm sure God has a sense of humor; why else would he have created a thing like love? I just hope that's as far as His sense of humor goes, because I don't want to live to be 200. Unless he sends me another John to pass the time with," she winked at me before taking another long sip from her glass of gin.

Righto, Otto, that's that. Otherworldlyone from Calling people names thought me worthy of an award and coming from her (my blogsister in crime) I consider it a huge honour. If you haven't read her blog, you have a gap in your upbringing, trust me. I got this award thanks to my comments I irritate her with ever so often. I will gladly pass this award along, just not today. Today is not a good day for me. And considering tomorrow being Monday, it won't be a good one either. But I'll report back for duty soon enough with an award up my sleeve.