painted nails

I painted Nora's nails today. Jonah wanted nails painted too. The color was bright crimson red, seductive really and we all realized that Jonah actually has fantastic girl hands, beautiful, elegant, long.
While his nails were drying I got a phone call from some relatives and gave out the scoop again about my father in law. He is sick in the hospital with newly diagnosed colon cancer. There is possibly more cancer and more cancer and more cancer.
"Jonah, don't touch the table cloth, keep waving your hands........ Yes Aunt Janet, it seems quite serious."
We picked up the house without one smudge for Jonah. Nora peeled most of hers off and mine are a total wreck. Sadie would rather wear a dress than paint her nails (for those that do not know Sadie, she does not wear dresses) so she was paintless and in her basketball uniform most of the day.
We got in the car to go to the library. We were going to meet Gary there. He was out walking, out thinking. His dad is sick and people are still getting up and moving about the world. People are still calling looking for guitar lessons and I still have to feed our children. Everything seems in a state of dream.
Gary said he had a dream last night that he was falling off a cliff.
I didn't dream. I slept like a rock and then woke up and had a full minute
before I remembered. He is sick. He has cancer. He is almost 80 and these may be our last times with him.
At the library there was a party for our favorite children's room librarian, Cathy. She is leaving after 19 years and all of my children's lives. She has been there from Carl books through all the Harry Potters and more. She is leaving and Jonah showed her his nails. She thought they looked beautiful. They really did.
Gary came along after us strutting with a look on his face I don't even really know. He plowed in and proceeded to belt out several different kids songs for Cathy and the kids and pay tribute to her in the only way he knows how. Guitar, song, voice.
Jonah had a peice of cake and when he ate it a little girl next to him admired his fingernails.
We went to the animal store without Gary. We said goodbye to him in the front of the library. Jonah was crying because he didn't want to leave and I was frustrated that Jonah was crying and Nora was excited about her new Narnia CD and Sadie was happy about her new book and Gary looked pale, childlike in the rear view waving at us.
He is going to visit his dad. At the same hospital where his dad first held him, he will go hold his dad.
Jonah and Nora wanted to spend their $10 Valentines money from Grammy and Grampy on two new fish so we picked out a shiny fish bowl and two really beautiful goldfish and talked to the salesguy about the book "A Fish Out of Water" which he had never heard of. We told him to get it and read it and Jonah pointed at his new fish with his shimmering red nails, smiling all the while at "Baby Einstein and Nemo."
On the ride home we talked about life and fish and sickness and I imagined what I would say to them the day that one of their grandfathers dies. One is 80 and one is 55. One is in the hospital gasping for breathe, watching Fox news and talking about the Red Sox. The other is using his oxegon, watching Leave it to Beaver, playing "Gotcha Last" with my children.
Jonah is laying on the floor with his sister Nora watching Harry Potter. He has forgotten about the red nails.
I am swirling through the red nails, the laughing faces and the mudpies. I am praying for more days of childhood before I have to talk to them about goodbye.