It’s been a time. Some days have felt like a week.
It’s really over, Christmas, and the house has never felt emptier. The only thing to do is clean it and trust that in emptying it, it will fill again.
I may have made a miscalculation in traveling to St. Louis this weekend, arriving the same time as the storm, the worst one in forty years. But it was the first weekend since her intake and I would not miss the chance to see her. I got stuck twice, and twice, people came out of nowhere to push my car further up the hill until I made it to the treatment center. We had an hour together, ran out of things to say, held each other in a corner of the day room. All the kids were having to camp out there at the treatment center instead of taking the van to their residence because the danger on the road was too great. Mostly girls, they were tucked up together in groups, huddled around their small screens, or talking on the phone with loved ones, some of them had feeding tubes worn casually taped to their cheek. I could not stop thinking about the novel “Never Let Me Go” by Kazua Ishiguro and the harvesting clinic and that image made me ill to my stomach, and still days later I cannot shake it. I had to head back to the hotel, a close call at the bottom of a hill when I could not stop my car at the red light, the cross traffic unable to stop either. A fresh round of snow starting in the morning sent me back to Louisville without seeing her again because I knew I would never make it back up those hills for the afternoon visiting hours. I drove home without being able to tell her that I was leaving.
Saturday night back in Louisville a late phone call from the girl. I’ve worked very hard to become someone who embraces solitude, who at the end of hard days can sleep without the arms of love wrapped tight. But I’m not there yet.
The grace of friendship.
The week begins again. Rehearsals begin too for Mary Poppins. Over 80 children in the cast. I will not want for things to do, I will not want for company. And Jess is better, medically she is better already, and emotionally she has come through those dark days, for now anyway. Grateful, grateful for the cheerful FaceTime just now, Jess standing on her head, her new friends jumping into the frame, smiling and laughing, feeding tubes and all. Sweet children in an anxious world.
Last night there was a party near the river with homemade pizza and thrillingly loud fireworks at the house of dear friends. Along with myself, my daughter and her boyfriend, there was their son Duncan and his posse of longtime companions, all of them in the early twenties who look upon Duncan’s house as being quite their own home too. I asked if anyone wanted to draw something in the last few pages of my journal as I am planning on starting a brand new one on January 1st. Below are the sketches they gifted me:
This is from Seth who will be studying next semester in Spain before going to Law School.This is from Chris, a far better artist than I.This is from Max who makes amazing Pizza.This is from Weston, my daughter’s sweet boyfriend who studies physics.And this is from Ed, who has been my loyal friend for over 40 years. I too believe in days like this, thank you my dear for the warmth of your home.
The Fox at Dawn 