"We can do hard things"
But darn it all, does it have to be so many of them? And for so long?
I did a hard thing this past weekend, but it was so good. I took my mom to see her sister in Florida. My aunt isn't doing all that well after a stroke about a year ago. Brain trauma is a funky thing. There are so many things we don't know about the brain - how it works so well, telling our heart to increase a beat here, telling our lungs to expand just a little more to let that swell of anxiety subside there. It just impresses the heck out of me.
So when your brain is injured and some things don't work right, it's like you're walking right along and your leg forgets how to move you forward. Sometimes you stop and wait for the leg to remember. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. Maybe it'll remember tomorrow. You just don't know. And the scary part is - is that you know one day, your leg won't remember any more.
But sometimes the brain heals - or mends - in ways you don't expect.
When my aunt first had her stroke, the immediate signs were not good.
Then there was some improvement - and I spoke to her via FaceTime over the summer. She can't send me a birthday card any more (which she has done RELIGIOUSLY for 46 years) - so she wanted to call for #47. Frankly, that was even better. Her speech was stilted, her face a little droopy, but she knew me and my voice - and I sang "You Are My Sunshine" to her and we laughed.
And then it was time to be discharged from rehab - and go to a care facility - and it was about then that we all knew her brain had mended as much as it could and now we wait and see.
My mom wanted to go see her - for the difficult phrase of "for perhaps the last time." And she needed help to get there. She asked if I'd take her and I agreed. In the middle of a pandemic omicron surge, in the dead of winter....to Florida. To see my aunt. It wasn't a tough sell.
Upon arrival at the airport, I'm a bull in a china shop and I didn't bother to wait for the line at Delta to get the wheelchair, I snagged one myself (had they been there all along?!? I never knew!) - and we went up to security at oh-dark-thirty in the morning. We flew right through, got some water and sat to wait. Before I even could tell if we had a gate agent, a man named Jon came to visit. Funny, my aunt's husband is Jon. Cool.
Jon asked if we were in the system and I admitted sheepishly that we were not. I was impatient when we arrived. Not only did he "get us registered" for future wheelchair needs - basically he told the system we were here and needed our wheelchair reservation - he then found the guy in 14A and had him board with us so mom wouldn't have to get up from 14C once he came on board. He was just a gem.
The connection in Atlanta was seamless. Though we were next to the gate going to Aruba and we often thought of just stowing away.
Arrival in Sarasota was easy - and the Budget rental car line wasn't too long.
Until you realized it was 10 minutes per person to get the keys. Over an hour later, with now 45 people behind us - we were on our way to see my aunt.
The nursing home is on the back side of a progressive living environment. It's not in the greatest area, but the foliage around blocked most of the chaff and the staff smiles made up for it.
Mom steeled herself, we walked in not entirely knowing what to expect - and there was my beloved Aunt all aglow to see her sister. She knew us immediately.
Phew. Step one.
And we chatted and talked.
We laughed...she repeated a few things...thought she saw someone when she didn't...spoke of distant memories that felt like yesterday and strange happenings that we don't know if they occurred or not.
At one point, I pulled my mask down for just a second and stuck my tongue out at her....
"you better watch it girl, I know things about you," she said.
Oh goodness, yes ma'am, you certainly do. I'll hush now.
I'll be grateful for that moment.
Dinner with some family that evening - my cousin, her new husband who I hadn't met yet, her son who I hadn't seen in 20 years, and my uncle.
Another visit in the morning, this time up and in the activities room - more cousins, more laughs, more memories, more stories of how my aunt would claim the good piece of fried chicken by licking it. And her threat to do the same to the strawberry cake donut that sat a few inches away.
Yes, she got that donut for dessert.
I don't mess with my aunt, even if she's in a wheelchair. She'd whack me senseless. God love her.
A short break to nap and a quick run to the beach, melancholy following us everywhere we turned. Too many elephants in the room to even turn around. I saw the ocean and it was angry. Crashing waves, misty skies - 57 degrees with a low of 37. Not the Florida I hoped for. This was about doing hard things. Really hard things.
But the peace of the waves, no matter how hard they tossed, gave us a little room to breathe and pray.
We returned for another short visit - yet another cousin stopping in for a chat - and time to sing. Sunshine was missing for the day, but You Are My Sunshine is appropriate for any time. Including a little Jesus Loves Me and Amazing Grace. My beloved aunt sang right along. My left eye might have leaked a little.
Dinner with family, an exhausted trip to the hotel and a solid sleep for one last go.
Sunday was met with a familiar anxiety - how would this play out now that this was the last visit before we had to fly home.
Sadness crept in - my aunt was up, but she wasn't alert. The shadows lurked, her eyes were not clear, the stories were disjointed...she napped often. Mom would breathe deeply, rub her sister's neck or hands, we would sit in moments of silence.
My aunt's lunchtime approached - and it afforded us the opportunity to have one last hug, one last squeeze, one last deep breath.
Mom seemed to manage the process with so much grace and compassion - and yet a full understanding of the gravity of it all. I was immensely proud of her.
SRQ to MSP is a long one when you board the plane first. Longer when you get to the airport early. Longer still when you have a layover and interminable when you board first for GRR, have a 45 minute delay for missing bags and another delay for de-icing. Arrival at 11:05pm was barely on this side of what we could handle and it was as fast as we could scurry to get to the car...to home...to bed.
I'll muse on this trip long after I've done the laundry and caught up on chores. I'll permanently mark a place on my heart for our time together - my time with my mom - and doing the hard things. Because the generation that came before makes it all worth it.
