Beer Moment: Cold Beers on a Hot Patio

I’ve subtitled this as a “beer diary” from the start and with that title comes the fact that from time to time there will be some heavy baggage to carry here – or I can stop posting and cash in my chips, I guess.

I’ve been out of the loop for a month or so.

I’m growing my beard out some these days, which isn’t too unusual for me given that I try on the beard now and then just to see how gray I’m getting. (I think John Steinbeck wrote that growing a beard is the only thing a man can do better than a woman.)

Difference this time ‘round is that I’m keeping the beard for now because it’s the way I would have last appeared to my mom as she lay sick and dying in a hospital bed.

Mom passed away very suddenly on May 29th. Just about 2 months after a wonderful 80th birthday party, at which we were all blessedly oblivious to the cancer that was even then taking her away from us.

I haven’t been drinking heavily as a form of painkiller as I thought I might under the circumstances; though I have had some beers for sure. I’ve had occasion to stop off at mom’s place a time or two in the last few weeks and I always take a moment to have a cold beer out on her patio – just one, maybe two – never too much to count me out for the hour long drive back to my place. (I had coffee and donuts one morning, too by the way.) It’s good therapy, there in the shade, with the incessant heat licking at the edges of the patio cover and at the edges of my soul; watching the wildlife.

Mom was a lot of things in her life but never a quitter. She lived in France shortly after the war, she worked in the then traditionally all-male banking industry, she nursed more than one dying husband and she wrote a book. She was awesome and largely under appreciated. She’d probably be a bit disappointed that her youngest son chose to first eulogize her on a beer blog. “You learned to drink in the army,” she once admonished me.

At times like this, I think the tendency is to make wild promises about how one will lead ones life going forward. “I’ll go to church every Sunday.” “I’ll give more to charity.” “I’ll stop swearing.” “I’ll never drink again.” “I’ll only cheat at cards if I plan to give the profits to charity, while not drinking or swearing.” You get the picture.

For now, I’ll just keep the beard. Beyond that, I am what my mom made me and I’m sure that at some point she’ll tell me what needs changing. I'll get myself straightened out and post some more here soon.