Take Care
On the multi-storey car park that I sometimes frequent, when it stamps your ticket as you leave it prints on "Drive Carefully". What's that all about? How many people have seen it and thought "Hey, I was going to roar out of here at seventy, but now I've read that I think I'll creep out at ten"?
"Have a nice day" is the most irritating of these fake-caring phrases, and I always want to reply with some cuttingly smartarse response, but I usually manage to smile weakly and exit.
But, I notice, I say "take care". I say it often at the end of phone conversations and frequently write it at the end of emails. Sometimes I write it and then delete it because it sounds hollow. Sometimes I write it and then leave it there because as a matter of fact, I never say it or write it when I don't mean it. I say it to family and friends and I don't say it to people who are trying to sell me a new kitchen.
In the days when "Goodbye" meant "God be with you" then this gave a parting a bit more feeling than today's "Bye", and I think that's why I tend to add "Take care".
Seeing all the elderly, ill people over the past couple of months while the Communist has been in hospitals and the nursing home has given the phrase "take care" a stronger meaning for me.
"Do you smoke?" asked the doctor in one hospital.
"No," said the Communist, "I haven't smoked for over fifty years."
"Mmm, thought not," said the doctor, "or your legs would have been as bad as this ten years ago and you'd probably have died before the heart bypass."
It did bring it home to me. Another doctor, young and conscientious and very likeable, wrote down all the Communist's health problems and then looked up at me.
"All these conditions have a hereditary element. Diabetes, blood clots, heart disease, stroke - - you should take care of yourself."
Well, I've got the diabetes, and I've had a blood clot in the past. I'm doing my best to fend of the rest by never having smoked, not drinking alcohol, eating masses of fruit and vegetables and getting lots of exercise. If that sounds horribly virtuous, it's because I have seen the Ward of Doom and I don't want to end up there. And, take it from me, when I ask you to take care, it's because I don't want you to end up there either.
"Have a nice day" is the most irritating of these fake-caring phrases, and I always want to reply with some cuttingly smartarse response, but I usually manage to smile weakly and exit.
But, I notice, I say "take care". I say it often at the end of phone conversations and frequently write it at the end of emails. Sometimes I write it and then delete it because it sounds hollow. Sometimes I write it and then leave it there because as a matter of fact, I never say it or write it when I don't mean it. I say it to family and friends and I don't say it to people who are trying to sell me a new kitchen.
In the days when "Goodbye" meant "God be with you" then this gave a parting a bit more feeling than today's "Bye", and I think that's why I tend to add "Take care".
Seeing all the elderly, ill people over the past couple of months while the Communist has been in hospitals and the nursing home has given the phrase "take care" a stronger meaning for me.
"Do you smoke?" asked the doctor in one hospital.
"No," said the Communist, "I haven't smoked for over fifty years."
"Mmm, thought not," said the doctor, "or your legs would have been as bad as this ten years ago and you'd probably have died before the heart bypass."
It did bring it home to me. Another doctor, young and conscientious and very likeable, wrote down all the Communist's health problems and then looked up at me.
"All these conditions have a hereditary element. Diabetes, blood clots, heart disease, stroke - - you should take care of yourself."
Well, I've got the diabetes, and I've had a blood clot in the past. I'm doing my best to fend of the rest by never having smoked, not drinking alcohol, eating masses of fruit and vegetables and getting lots of exercise. If that sounds horribly virtuous, it's because I have seen the Ward of Doom and I don't want to end up there. And, take it from me, when I ask you to take care, it's because I don't want you to end up there either.
posted by Daphne at 9:38 pm
1 Comments:
You added a 'take care' to an email to me last month. I liked it then but now I feel almost honoured.
I don't like 'have a nice day' when used in this country as our fast food outlets just took it from US fast food outlets and it doesn't work here.
But when said by a friend over there, it takes on a different relevance and sincerity and so it's a nice departing message to take with you. It just took me a long time to be comfortable with any reply to it.
Then I realised 'you too' works fine.
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