In a perfect world, I’d be the span of a continent away this weekend celebrating my induction, along with a dozen or so of my fellow teammates, into my university’s athletic Hall of Fame. In 1986, the year they voted me team captain, my college swim team won the NAIA national championship.
In a perfect world, my husband and my son might have joined me on the uneventful, albeit long, cross-country plane ride plus a drive east from Seattle through the Cascade range to the arid wheat fields and pastures of central Washington state. However, a month or so ago, when I understood—and lamented—that I couldn’t bare to leave my oft-seizing boy to travel three-thousand miles and be gone no less than five days and at least a full day of travel away, I decided not to go.
But when Michael saw my disappointment, and since he'd cleared his calendar to take care of Calvin, he gifted me a ticket for a quick trip to New York instead. I’d not been back to the Big Apple, one of my favorite places in the world, for seven years, though I had promised myself I’d go every spring. He knew I desperately needed to get away, could sense my restlessness, exhaustion and despair, and if I couldn’t manage a cross-country trip, at least I could get away for the weekend to a place that I love that is less than an hour flight away. This, I could justify doing. And so yesterday, though it killed me to leave a sick, feverish and seizing boy and my loving husband, my blooming garden and the perfectest dog in the world, I pried myself from the safety and comfort of home and put myself on a plane.
During the flight, and especially when I finally saw the Manhattan skyline, anchored in a way by Lady Liberty lifting her torch above the horizon, I thought about a perfect world. In a perfect world, I thought, my child would’ve been born normal. In a perfect world he wouldn’t be suffering epilepsy. In a perfect world, he wouldn’t endure the effects of heinous medications and a protracted, painful and difficult withdrawal. In a perfect world my son would walk on his own and see well and run and play with friends and talk and tell us what is wrong. In an ideal world, perhaps, I’d be able to be two or three places at once.
But it is not a perfect world. It is imperfect at best. And so Michael is home with our sick little kid and I am here being coddled by loved ones and friends, and hopefully by Sunday when I'm heading home, I'll be rested, refueled, energized and ready to get back to the business of taking care of Calvin again.
In a perfect world, my husband and my son might have joined me on the uneventful, albeit long, cross-country plane ride plus a drive east from Seattle through the Cascade range to the arid wheat fields and pastures of central Washington state. However, a month or so ago, when I understood—and lamented—that I couldn’t bare to leave my oft-seizing boy to travel three-thousand miles and be gone no less than five days and at least a full day of travel away, I decided not to go.
But when Michael saw my disappointment, and since he'd cleared his calendar to take care of Calvin, he gifted me a ticket for a quick trip to New York instead. I’d not been back to the Big Apple, one of my favorite places in the world, for seven years, though I had promised myself I’d go every spring. He knew I desperately needed to get away, could sense my restlessness, exhaustion and despair, and if I couldn’t manage a cross-country trip, at least I could get away for the weekend to a place that I love that is less than an hour flight away. This, I could justify doing. And so yesterday, though it killed me to leave a sick, feverish and seizing boy and my loving husband, my blooming garden and the perfectest dog in the world, I pried myself from the safety and comfort of home and put myself on a plane.
During the flight, and especially when I finally saw the Manhattan skyline, anchored in a way by Lady Liberty lifting her torch above the horizon, I thought about a perfect world. In a perfect world, I thought, my child would’ve been born normal. In a perfect world he wouldn’t be suffering epilepsy. In a perfect world, he wouldn’t endure the effects of heinous medications and a protracted, painful and difficult withdrawal. In a perfect world my son would walk on his own and see well and run and play with friends and talk and tell us what is wrong. In an ideal world, perhaps, I’d be able to be two or three places at once.
But it is not a perfect world. It is imperfect at best. And so Michael is home with our sick little kid and I am here being coddled by loved ones and friends, and hopefully by Sunday when I'm heading home, I'll be rested, refueled, energized and ready to get back to the business of taking care of Calvin again.
 |
| Looking to Manhattan from the deck of the Brooklyn bridge. |
I'm glad you are enjoying the Big Apple. May you get the nourishment that such a trip can give. Some years ago, I left my son for a similar time period to just pop in and then leave a family wedding overseas. I traveled longer than I was there. But there I was and got a shot of adrenaline from loved ones there, knowing I could only get a taste of the festivities before heading back home. The memory stays even 30 years later.
ReplyDelete