When Ming was a baby I used to call him ‘my little beautiful’. I would accompany this with tickling so that whenever I said ‘my little beautiful’ he would giggle and gurgle with the delight of anticipation.
I love laughing. I LOVE LAUGHING! Lately, though, there hasn’t been much to laugh about so my thirsty sense of humour seems to be grasping at the tiniest little things and latching onto them. Yesterday, for example, Ming and I were in a shop choosing birthday gifts for three of his friends – one girl and two guys. Ming had decided to buy perfume for the girl and cologne for the guys so we were examining the contents of the locked glass cabinet when he pointed to a tester bottle (you know, so you can test if you like it or not by spraying it on yourself). He said, ‘That looks like a good brand, Mum – Tester.’
I looked at him, thinking he was joking, but his expression was serious. ‘That’s a tester, Ming.’
‘Oh, do you know it?’
‘It’s a tester – it’s not a brand.’ By then I was nearly hysterical with laughter and Ming was blushing as the shop assistant opened the cabinet.
This incident keeps leaping, unbidden, back into my mind and making me laugh all over again.
A bit later on in the day, we met my mother and our visiting cousins at a restaurant overlooking a bay. As my mother and I stood at the counter ordering our food, she said the strangest thing to me. She said, “Where’s the water?” I pointed to the bay so she headed back to the cousins and Ming who were seated almost on top of the bay. I wondered if perhaps my mother might be losing the plot. Once I was again seated at our table, she asked me again and I suddenly realized she meant drinking water. Again, I became nearly hysterical with laughter; we all did.
I guess you had to be there!
Then, last night, when I rang Anthony at the nursing lodge to say goodnight and he said, ‘Hello, my beautiful,’ and my heart grinned.
jmgoyder 