This cartoon showed up in my Facebook messages yesterday, along with a brief note from Peggy’s daughter, Julie. (For anyone who doesn’t already know, Peggy was Mom’s best friend for over 60 years, until Peggy passed away. They each cooked and cooked. And they were proud of their bewitching ways.) Julie wrote that she had come across this a few weeks ago, and even made a card out of it to send to Mom. The cartoon fits them to a “T.” I messaged back my thanks to Julie for thinking to make it into a card and send it to Mom—as well as letting me in on it. No sooner had I hit the return key to send the message than I realized “Helen” and “Peggy” were in Mom’s handwriting. It was also a NEW YORKER magazine cartoon. It dawned on me this thing started out with me finding it in a magazine years ago! I was beginning to recall a general sense of how this came full circle.
Here’s my memory’s best theory: I saw the cartoon in THE NEW YORKER magazine and—recognizing my two favorite classy witches, Mom and Peggy—tore it out or copied it, then handed it to Mom. I have no doubt that when I gave it to her, I said something snarky like, “Mom, here’s a picture of you and Peggy in the news again, wreaking havoc.” Of course, Mom must have then passed it on to Peggy (because I don’t remember doing it), but not before making it funnier by clearly identifying who’s who, by writing both of their names on it for all the world to see. Mom and Peggy, together, were The Bobbsey Twins. I was merely an occasional third wheel in the drinking-Pepsi-and-driving movie of their lives.
You know how I am about coincidences, signs, and such. As I’ve said before, folks, we’re all connected. Everything is connected. What we do will come back to us. We will likely one day need aid from the very people we have hurt or ignored. That, too, will come back to torment us, if only in our own memories.
This cartoon is just a simple, light-hearted drawing that found its image all the way back to me, causing me to think of Mom and Peggy with a full and grateful joy. I’m glad it was a good thing that found it’s way back in my direction. Imagine if it had been a mean-spirited thing I had said or done to them that ricocheted back to me—with Peggy three-years-gone now, and Mom now quarantined in her room at the care center. I am happy to report that as far as I can recall, I have no regrets about my dealings with either of the two giant witches who so shaped my sensibilities and taught me to sharpen my broomstick when necessary. Besides, I have a feeling that if I’d ever gotten out of line with either of those dames, I would have gotten my what-goes-around-comes-around karma back from both of them right then and there.
FYI I did a little research about the cartoon this afternoon, and found that it was drawn by Sam Gross, and published in the June 23, 2014 issue of THE NEW YORKER. I had a subscription to the magazine then, as I do now. And it is worth every penny the subscription has cost me over the decades, just to have Julie send this to me yesterday.