Today Katie & I did our semi-monthly Therapy Dog visit at an elders extended care residence. We've made friends with all the residents but have grown close to one in particular. This month is Madeliene's birthday. She's in her early 90's and I wish I were as clear-minded and as sharp as she is. We decided that my next visit, Kate will stay home and I'll take Madeliene to the local casino for lunch or dinner and a maybe a little time at the slots. She was really pleased and I told her that this would be her "ticket in the drawer." She was delighted with the term; she'd never heard it before.
A friend of mine taught me the term years ago. It was June and my husband was ill with lung cancer. He'd just had major surgery and had been in the I.C.U. for about a week. The doctor had opened him up and couldn't do anything for him but close him up again and try to keep him from bleeding out. Now he was just trying to keep him alive so we could try something else and keep fighting that horrid disease.
There was an announcement in the paper that Harvey Korman & Tim Conway from the old Carol Burnett Show were going to be appearing in town in October. These were two of Larry's favorites so I bought tickets. I took them and the announcement to the hospital, showed them to him and said, "check these out, but you have to keep improving and be well enough to attend." When he finally came home, the tickets were on the refrigerator door. My girlfriend explained that these were his "ticket in a drawer" and that when used they had to be replaced by a new "ticket" so he'd always have something special waiting for him. We replaced those with tickets to a movie he really wanted to see and then with a weekend trip to the coast. Knowing he had a "ticket in the drawer" gave him something to aim for and helped keep him going. He had a "ticket in the drawer" when he died. We had made reservations for another weekend at the coast and his son had bought tickets to an air show; he never got to use those tickets, but he knew they were there for him.
For the first couple of years after he died, I used to keep a "ticket in the drawer" or two for me so there was always something to look forward to and then I got busy with the day to day stuff and I hadn't thought about it for some time. But Madeliene reminded me today that we all need to be sure that we always have a "ticket in the drawer".
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