Chinet Paper Plates

Michelle DeRusha: Even best intentions may fall short

As we hover over the peace lily, I finger a shiny leaf unfurling amid the white stalks that jut from the green foliage. We rehash the details of the wake and funeral, the scent of chrysanthemum and stargazer lily heavy in the humid air. Late afternoon sunlight streams through the sliding glass doors.

My friend Andrea, still reeling from the shock of her father's death, turns to me.

"Good intentions aren't enough. I know that now," she says. "I'm done with good intentions. If I've learned anything in this, it's that now I know how important it is to follow through."

Andrea talks about all the small graces that touched her and her family during her father's illness and death: the savory honey-baked ham and scalloped potatoes a neighbor dropped off at the house the night after the funeral; the ice cream her friend Kara bought special and delivered to her father's room; the acquaintance who mowed the lawn while Andrea and her family kept a vigil next to her father's hospital bed.

"I've been on the other end before," Andrea says, "and I always have the best intentions. I mean to write the card or send the email or bake the lasagna. And sometimes I do, but sometimes I don't." She shrugs. "I procrastinate and say, 'I'm going to do it later or tomorrow,' and then a day goes by and another, and I just don't."

We've all been there. I procrastinated writing a card to Andrea's father because I knew it would be painful, and I simply didn't know what to say. I finally did write and mail the card, but it arrived after he already was too sick to read it.

When I talked to our old neighbor Dale at the wake, he admitted that he had intended to send a note to Andrea's dad, too. "I wanted to write it; I even knew what I was going to say," he said, eyes welling. "But I didn't do it, and then it was too late because he was gone so fast."

The chemo and dialysis, biopsies and CT scans, blood work and lab tests are important, but in the end the diagnostic tools and even the cutting-edge treatments aren't what we remember. They aren't what keep us afloat through unbearable anxiety, suffering and grief. Instead, these small, almost inconsequential acts make the difference.

The phone call matters -- even the awkward call with the long pauses and heavy sighs, the one in which it feels like you aren't saying anything meaningful or helpful at all. The brownies delivered to the front door on the Chinet paper plate wrapped in tinfoil matter, even as you ring the doorbell and think, "It's just a plate of Betty Crocker-from-a-box brownies; how can this possibly help?

$.43 Chinet paper plates at K-mart this week! « {My blessed life.}

Coupon was from coupon machine down the paper goods aisle in Dillon’s about 5 weeks ago. If you’re ever down an aisle and they have those tiny boxes that spit coupons out for the product it’s sitting in front of they’re purposely trying to get you to pay a certain price to that item. Hang on to those coupons and back away from the product!! Chances are a few weeks later it will be on a much better sale at that store or other stores. Don’t be sucked in to that “deal”!

I used 2 of the $.55 coupons and 1 of the $1.00 coupons so for me the plates were $.43 each, however, if you only use the $.55 coupon the plates will be $.40 each.

** MOM : KNOWING YOUR LUCK WITH COUPONS THIS DEAL MAY NOT BE AVAILABLE TO YOU BECAUSE CHANCES ARE YOU EITHER DIDN’T GET THE COUPONS, K-MART IS OUT, YOUR STORE ISN’T DOUBLING, OR FOR WHATEVER REASON THEY JUST DON’T WANT TO ACCEPT COUPONS FROM YOU BECAUSE YOU CARRY NEGATIVE COUPON ENERGY!! ** hehe!

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