Sadness Stands Still

It’s not easy.  Although the times of tears are no longer daily, the waves of overwhelming sadness grab at me when I am still.


This past weekend Bella came for a visit.  On Saturday we took her to an auction.  She didn’t know what that was. Ross told her what to expect.
Before the auction started, Bella and I looked under all of the tables and in all of the boxes.  We were searching for the American Girl doll that was advertised.  We finally found her.  She was in a box lot marked K.
The hall was crowded and we had gotten there late.  Bella reminded me that I told her that if we didn’t get there early we wouldn’t get a seat. We had to stand all the way in the back.
Bella was very patient for the first hour. By that time, though, she was getting tired of standing.  So was I.  Then one of the auction workers came around with more chairs and we were able to sit. Bella had to sit on her knees so that she could see.
After hour number two, I told Bella to send out vibes to the auctioneer by saying to herself, “put the doll up, put the doll up.”
At the end of the third hour, a bag of chips and a Danish, I asked Bella if she wanted to leave.  She said no. She wanted to wait for as long as it took for the doll to come up for bid.
 Ross went up to the guy running the auction and asked him if he would put the doll up.  The guy said he would.
Another half hour went by and finally the box marked K was handed to the auctioneer.
The bidding was hot and heavy between Ross and another bidder.  Ross made a few power moves.  First he held his card up, which is a well known signal to all other bidders that he had no intention of giving up.  The second thing Ross did was call out bids in increments of $20 even before the auctioneer had a chance to call the bid.
The second bidder eventually dropped out.

And The Winner Is

On the way out of the auction hall, a man was standing outside smoking a cigar.  He motioned me over to him.  He apologized for bidding against us.  He said he didn’t know that we were bidding on the doll for our granddaughter.  He told me that if had known he would not have bid against us.  I guess we should have had Bella standing at the front of the room holding up the card.  At least that’s what the cigar smoker told me we should have done.
When we got home from the auction, Bella and I learned how to knit on a loom.  She made hats for her new doll.
Miss American was on TV on Saturday night.  Bella had never seen a Miss America pageant.  She was rooting for Miss South Carolina.  We let her stay up until 10:30.  She watched the rest of Miss America from her bed.  Miss South Carolina was the runner up.  Before she fell asleep, she wanted to know if I thought there would be other Miss America shows on Netflix.  If there were, she could watch them on her Nook.  I told her I didn’t think so.
We took Bella home on Sunday.
The stillness came back and I was grabbed by sadness.