When we had kitties. The black kitty had the strangest hair. If you were to cut her hair off to the last quarter inch, she actually was white. Each hair had a black tip. The white kitty lived to be 22 years old.The other night, Naomi was invitied to a 'girls' night' with Dontae's three sisters. I objected as I thought she should be studying. They couldn't have had too much of a wild time as one of them (named Shanna only spelled more creatively) has 2 babies in tow. Naomi is especially close to one of the sisters. His family has been very welcoming to her. But the one who has the babies asked Naomi if she were tested for sickle cell.
Um, no...I'm white. (not according to my father-more later)
Well this woman is a carrier and she's a full sister to Dontae (his is a blended family). One can reasonably conclude that Dontae has a 50% chance of being a carrier too and if so, Baby Nae Tae has a 50% chance of being one too-overall a 25% chance. Who would have thunk? Naomi wondered what all this meant.
Well the good news is that she's probably resistant to malaria.
I told Naomi that if I am not around, Baby Nae Tae depending on who she ultimately ends up with, needs to be tested so that in turn Naomi's grandchild won't end up with full-blown sickle cell anemia. Or her daughter could be counselled to go for hybrid vigor, Dontae's apparent tactic, and find a mate who is less likely to be a carrier. Certainly she should avoid those cousins.
As for my father, especially as he grew older, was always spouting racial bs. In his eyes, all of his grandchildren(6) were half-breeds. He never to seemed to remember their names to show that they were not worth it. Somehow he rallied though because in his will, he remember all six names and bequeathed one dollar to each. The name he forgot or misspelled was that of his daughter, also deserving of just one dollar. He persisted with his inane racism even in the hospital with his care givers. I had to constantly apologize for him saying that he was mentally ill. He loved that.
So we studied again yesterday and will today. The big project is almost done.
3 comments:
Sue - you are quite the amazing woman! I wished you lived next door...we would have such fun!
Hm...your father. I don't know how you managed hanging in there with all of that at the end of his life...
On a brighter note, your blog from last week inspired me to get some gorgeous artichokes from the Farmer's market. You prepared artichokes for me one when I came for dinner early in your marriage. It was the second time in my life I had eaten one...the first time being on a trip to California at age 10. Anyway, I was in awe and wonder that any midwestern woman could prepare such a food!
It was our mutual buddy John M. that told me about the joys of artichokes but I guess he is an Easterner. One thing he told me was to drink milk right after eating part of the artichoke and notice how sweet the milk suddenly tasted. I did that tonight with Naomi to celebrate the end of us studying for a while with a fresh set of artichokes. She thought it was a neat trick.
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