Month: March 2008

a page out of DD’s book

DD has made a believer out of me wrt pre-flight adult beverages.  More specifically, the fun that can be had meeting people in airport bars.

It’s not so much that drinking is required or even desirable before I get on an airplane; I’ve never been so much as tipsy on a flight. But today, after having no sleep, needing food, I bellied up to the bar and let the very entertaining Marge serve me food and a beer whilst waiting to get airborne. 

Marge is the kind of woman that instantly sizes you up and decides to give you shit because she knows you can take it, which is always fun.  So me, and the random couple en route to Key West, took the medicine that Marge doled out and did so with smiles.  The Key West Couple almost missed their flight, resulting in me having a free drink in my hand that they didn’t get the chance to even start…

Yes, it’s going to be a good flight.

togetherness

It’s almost 5am here which means I need to be getting on the road back to STL so I can catch my flight back home.  I’ve been up most of the night with my aunt Sue and cousin Lori at the hospital.  Not much has really changed with Pa.  It is a waiting game wherein the victor has been predetermined, but we want him to have family at his side up until the very last.

It’s times like these when I realize just how wonderful my family is, and how lucky we are to have each other. We’ve had the chance to reminisce together.  We have talked about the good times.  We’ve cried together.  We’ve sat together in silence. We’ve done the things that people who love each other do in times like this, none of it is really out of the ordinary.  It is precisely because it is not out of the ordinary for us that I feel so very lucky.  If I were inclined to religious thoughts, I’d say we were blessed.

I’m glad that I had the time and freedom to come home, even if it was for a short time.  It will be hard not to be here for the funeral, but it was better to come and say my goodbyes to Pa while he is still here.

So, here I go again on another full day of traveling…

holding vigil

He looked me in the eye today, squeezed my hand, and told me that he loved me.  My heart is broken with joy.

I’ve spent the last day and a half feeling completely helpless.  There is nothing we can do but be there for each other to lean on as we hold round-the-clock bedside vigil.  Waiting.  But that one moment was worth the world to me, for the chance for me to tell him that I love him one last time, and to get the same in return.

Word’s cannot describe what it is like to sit by the beside of a stroke victim who wants so desperately to communicate but cannot.  When he opens his eyes, they light up when they recognize your face,and he squeezes your hand you know that it’s love behind those eyes.  You just know, without words, because you’ve lived all of your live being loved by him.

Pa has had very few moments of brief lucidity that are unbelievably precious, particularly since we know his time is short… and it breaks my heart to know that we won’t have him much longer.  He’s as comfortable as they can possibly make him, but it’s hard because we know he’s in pain.

I had to get away tonight. I couldn’t take it any more.  I needed to get out and away… to be distracted, if only for a few hours.  I’m going back tomorrow, to hold vigil overnight with my aunt before I have to fly back home in the morning.  Leaving is going to be so hard… knowing that I won’t ever see him again.