Day 13 - February 1
A suffocating snowstorm is choking the airways, but by four o’clock this afternoon I am determined to get back to New York. East coast airports are closed, O’Hare flights are canceled and more snow is predicted for tomorrow.
An agent in India tells me there is only one seat left on any outgoing plane headed for Rochester, I’d better purchase immediately or I will lose it. Usually I fly with travel award tickets from Harold’s frequent flyer miles. However, I hang up the phone relieved, regardless that I paid eight hundred dollars for a one hour, one-way flight. All I can see, over and over again, are father’s eyes looking up from his pillow the last time I said good-night. I was the face looking back at his profound need. Words were not necessary, his eyes said this is not a time to be alone, it is not a time to be with friends, it's the time he needed me. Re-fueled by rest, medications, and Harold’s care, I'm ready to be there with him.
This is where I walk through a curtain into another realm. Technically, I walk up to the kiosk, check in, wait with hundreds of stranded fellow passengers who slept in the airport the night before, board--trading my first class seat by the window for my preferred aisle seat further back--call Steven to say I've landed after midnight, and roll my carry-on bag up father’s stairway for the last time.
So matter of fact, the ride from the airport—Steven requests a sugar-free fruit drink at an all-night sandwich shop, I ask for extra mayo on the roast beef. He tells me of his time with father while I was away. He learned a new appreciation for father’s peace in the presence of death, for father’s life-long incredibly deep faith, and father’s desire for him not to worry. I think we pass the baton, and then silently navigate country roads through massive amounts of snow blowing toward the windshield—the kind where one has to choose between using the blinding high beams or equally blinding low beams.
What kind of choice is that? The kind, after many years of driving in western New York snowstorms, we don’t say, “I certainly know what to do now,” but we do rely on our belief that we know how to drive and we will make it home safely. We are receptive to our instincts.
Father lived his whole life receptive to God’s love and guidance. He never lost his focus through so many nights of suffering, but rather prayed more earnestly, praising God who would take him home safely. He didn’t know how, but he believed it.
I enter a zone in which necessity renders me completely receptive to guidance from a spiritual source, or “God’s will,” as father so trustingly prays for.
I didn't say it at the time. I didn’t know it at the time.
An agent in India tells me there is only one seat left on any outgoing plane headed for Rochester, I’d better purchase immediately or I will lose it. Usually I fly with travel award tickets from Harold’s frequent flyer miles. However, I hang up the phone relieved, regardless that I paid eight hundred dollars for a one hour, one-way flight. All I can see, over and over again, are father’s eyes looking up from his pillow the last time I said good-night. I was the face looking back at his profound need. Words were not necessary, his eyes said this is not a time to be alone, it is not a time to be with friends, it's the time he needed me. Re-fueled by rest, medications, and Harold’s care, I'm ready to be there with him.
This is where I walk through a curtain into another realm. Technically, I walk up to the kiosk, check in, wait with hundreds of stranded fellow passengers who slept in the airport the night before, board--trading my first class seat by the window for my preferred aisle seat further back--call Steven to say I've landed after midnight, and roll my carry-on bag up father’s stairway for the last time.
So matter of fact, the ride from the airport—Steven requests a sugar-free fruit drink at an all-night sandwich shop, I ask for extra mayo on the roast beef. He tells me of his time with father while I was away. He learned a new appreciation for father’s peace in the presence of death, for father’s life-long incredibly deep faith, and father’s desire for him not to worry. I think we pass the baton, and then silently navigate country roads through massive amounts of snow blowing toward the windshield—the kind where one has to choose between using the blinding high beams or equally blinding low beams.
What kind of choice is that? The kind, after many years of driving in western New York snowstorms, we don’t say, “I certainly know what to do now,” but we do rely on our belief that we know how to drive and we will make it home safely. We are receptive to our instincts.
Father lived his whole life receptive to God’s love and guidance. He never lost his focus through so many nights of suffering, but rather prayed more earnestly, praising God who would take him home safely. He didn’t know how, but he believed it.
I enter a zone in which necessity renders me completely receptive to guidance from a spiritual source, or “God’s will,” as father so trustingly prays for.
I didn't say it at the time. I didn’t know it at the time.
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