This week, the nice thing I did was, again, something that I didn’t do. But this time, it’s not about keeping my mouth shut when I’m talking to annoying people.
Tomorrow is going to be Bart’s last day of high school. He doesn’t ship out until January 25th now, but he’s not coming back to school. So today, I decided to give him my Christmas gift. He’d already told me he didn’t expect me to get him anything, and I asked if that had ever stopped me before. He conceded; it hadn’t.
His favorite food is pasta salad, which I learned on the way to a tournament in Colorado Springs. So I went to City Market and grabbed the only three varieties I could find, since I didn’t know which kind of pasta salad he liked. Then I wrote him a letter, like the sap I am.
He read the letter first, as instructed, gave me a hug, opened the present, laughed, cuddled with the bacon kind, and gave me another hug. I had to go to literary magazine, so I made my excuse and he grinned and waved.
I’m at school. I’m at school. He doesn’t need this again. I tell myself, only vaguely surprised by the sting of tears. It wouldn’t be fair to him to cry in front of him again. Going into the Marines was his choice, and he deserves me, one of his best friends, to support him. It’s not to say that I don’t, but crying makes it a bit more difficult to decipher.
He’s being strong and making the decision to protect America. The least I could do is be strong and leave my eyes dry in front of him.
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Yesterday, I wrote about texting an old friend, and that’s another thing I did for someone else. She actually send me a Facebook message thanking me for thinking of her, because she was worried we’d all forgotten her. I didn’t expect it; I was under the impression that I was really the only one who benefited from our texting.
It’s really amazing that something so simple can make someone feel better. So go text that person you still have in your phonebook that you haven’t talked to forever. You won’t regret it.
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