A Moment to Ponder

HAVE YOU EVER...

1. found yourself just humming mindlessly and then suddenly stopping to actually listen to yourself and see what it is you've been humming?

That just happened to me; I was taking the dog for a late-night walk and was humming up the street and then I listened to myself. I was humming the late Luther Vandross's "Dance with My Father." I don't know why I was doing so -- as my husband is in his year of mourning, we don't listen to music in the home when he's in earshot, so it wasn't as if I'd heard it on the radio anytime recently. But I knew that I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness when I realized what I'd been humming.
Thank G-d my father is alive; he is not aging very well and has great difficulty even walking these days, much less dancing. Perhaps my subconscious was just telling me that I wish my father "of old" were back to dance with me, were back to his old, familiar self...

2. found yourself hiding in your own home or apartment when someone came to visit, not answering the peal of the doorbell or the rapping of a knock or the annoyance of a buzzer.

That has happened to us; we've "hidden out" from another family, not wanting to be social on a particular Shabbat afternoon, and telling the kids to be quiet, so the family wouldn't hear our giggles on the other side of the door.

3. wondered what it might've been like knowing your spouse as a child (Robert Avrech is an exception, having known his wife Karen since he was nine years old) -- ie. if you would have gotten on as children as you do in adult life

4. taken the time to tell someone how much they mean to you

5. allowed yourself to feel guilty over something you truly didn't have to

6. pondered why THE $100,000 PYRAMID went off the air, when it was such a good game show