Dog Days

Era ese tiempo de la canicula, cuando el aire de agosto sopla caliente, envenenado por el olor podrido de las saponarias. (Juan Rolfo)

My son and Mike worked with me today. S cut his hand on a piece of copper. It is still hot, even this evening I sit typing, not so uncomfortable but noticeably uncool.

We went to dinner with my sister Janice, her husband Jim, their daughter Kerry and Kerry’s friend Jessie. My sister comes down to the trailor park in Brant Rock every year and we usually go out to dinner at the Compass Rose, which we did last night. It was Kerry’s eleventh birthday. Jim is very sick, his liver is failing and he probably will not be approved for a transplant which is his only hope to live. A few months ago he almost died in the hospital, he did die in the sense that only the machines kept him alive that night. He told me flat out he did not have much time to live, I didn’t know what to say to him; he asked me to pray for him, that’s not like him. I felt that anything I could say would be pathetically insignificant. He wants to live to see his daughter grow up. My first thought was to pray that he would have peace, because I did not see much hope that he can find a liver. But on second thought I know that, if it was me, I would want people to pray that I would live.

Kerry and her friend Jessie were playing gymnastics on the grass by the trailer, we went back there after dinner and watched the moon and Mars rise over the ocean; I always have more fun when there are kids around. Scotty has always got on well with Jim and usually goes to stay with them in the summer.