November 18th, 2006 by The Bosphorus
Last night the Missus and I went driving before we picked up the kids from our church’s Parent’s Night Out. We’d gone over to the Time-Out Deli in Grove Center for dinner earlier. We had two hamburgers and I had a couple beers. It was our first time eating inside the restuarant. It’s a really good place.
We went back home. I tried to catch up reading comments and still can’t get over just how many there are. Then we decided to drive around a little before we brought the kids home. I love the curvey roads here in Oak Ridge. They’re disorienting until you’ve found your way around them a few times. They don’t lead from one place to the next very obviously, which is true of any old East Tennesse road. Driving years ago with an old friend from Canyon, TX taught me not to take these roads for granted.
I had no idea where we were going until I pulled the van out onto the road and drove up the hill. I felt pretty quickly where I needed to go. Part of me said no, you ought not do that, but I’ve turned a corner and am trying to recognize my feelings a bit more. I’m trying to give my feelings their due. So I made a right turn onto Utah, passed a friend’s house and it was good to think of them there. Then made another right onto New York Ave. There’s the Preschool with many good memories and then nearby was some other friends’ house.
When did we make a home in this town?
I turned onto the hospital campus and went the quickest way to the parking garage. There is no quick way to get there. It’s like a little Oak Ridge. Our way was blocked by a little old person (I really don’t know if it was a man or a woman. It was dark.) trying to get out of a wheel chair and into an SUV. I turned around a went back by the Turnpike side of the building. I told the Missus this is how I usually came. I liked to drive my truck quickly around all the curves in the parking lot.
There were the usual number of cars in the lower levels of the parking garage, but when we got to the top, it was empty. I parked our van nearby the building entrance. When we got out we watched a large Dodge pickup with an even larger camper on its bed lumbering out of the parking lot below us. I looked over at the hospital’s facade with its odd purple glow. There again I knew what I needed to do, but there was part of me that rationalized and said, no, you ought not. But I asked the Missus if she would like to walk inside and she said, “yes.”
So, we walked in and went down the stairwell. We opened the goofy doors that gave everybody trouble, except AT, seemingly. He’s ok with doors. When we got to the entrance to the building proper, that doorway was locked. We tried both handles, but neither door would open. And then I stood there and watched through the window the people inside the hospital walking back and forth. There were young people and old people. There was a family going past the Chapel with more girls in it than I’d ever imagined possible. I stood there and watch for a little while. I said a prayer and realized it wasn’t my place to go any further, not here, and that’s ok.
We left the parking garage and went out the way we first tried to come. The old folks in the SUV had gone on.
We turned out onto Tennessee Ave. and went on to get the kids.
November 18th, 2006 at 7:05 am
Yeah.
November 18th, 2006 at 7:35 am
Hopefully, one day that “place” won’t be associated with a dismal time. I’ve always thought it’s funny that in a hospital one floor is giving life and a few doors down it can be fading away; like a big revolving door and all we can do is sit and watch kinda like you did outside the doors last night.
Jeremiah 29:11….for I know the plans I have for you….
~tonya
November 18th, 2006 at 7:40 am
I read the most recent entry on the Pet Prayer and Praise blog site. My sincere condolences to your family.
I will pray for you.
Bonnie in Virginia
November 18th, 2006 at 8:13 am
Praying for you and your family
Tampa, FL
November 18th, 2006 at 8:15 am
Nice meditation, bos. Thanks.
November 18th, 2006 at 8:34 am
it’s all a part of grief …
:’(
November 18th, 2006 at 8:54 am
There were so many comments…and there are so many of us still who have no words.
You and your families are in the thoughts and heart of a complete stranger in Eastern Canada.
November 18th, 2006 at 9:36 am
We search out the familiar to help us find a way to handle change. How quickly the feared place of the hospital became a familiar place that seemed safer than reality. When you understood you were outside looking in, it was a step toward that change. I have found that grief sets up housekeeping within a family, almost like a new person coming in…a stranger who none of us want to get to know. Someone who knows about such things told me to her Grief wasn’t what I said, but a large black balloon that followed her everywhere. She said it was filled to bursting and that she could let out a little of its contents, once in a while. Then she had to stop its release and look away. But is was there always. It is the times when the whish of memories release themselves unexpectedly and on their own that catch her off guard.
November 18th, 2006 at 10:34 am
I thought a lot about the places we call home. I grew up on the move. Parents divorced — in an ugly way and I was moved from house to house — back and forth. This was not some court arranged agreement but rather what served one parent or the other at one particular time. Doc’s says this is what people with PTSD are made of. Constantly moving — no stability. I have to say this, and I am bit shocked, that TN has been the longest I have been anywhere. A wopping 8 years. When I was younger I moved from place to place, town to town, never making any real friends and always surviving. I thought it was normal life. And it was a safe life really — no commitments, never getting hurt really because you never had to really make things work. But now having been in TN I actually need to make an effort to make this home and quit the fear shit. I am always ready to move, aways ready for the other shoe to drop. So what if that shoe does drop? BOOM! That is one lead shoe. Now I am married and have a child. That makes six shoes and eight paws if you count the cats. That is a lot of foot dropping that my little safety net of unattachment can not wrap my arms around.
Being where you are when you are is hard.
November 18th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
She will always be with you - in your heart and in your thoughts.
My thoughts are with you.
November 18th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
That was really lovely Bos. Saying goodbye to someone you love shouldn’t ever be easy but you are all doing it well. Each in your own way. As it needs to be done. For YOU to survive. With Bravery. With Love. With Sorry. With Regret. With Love.