very summer, I pack up a bunch of things and head to St. Louis--usually for somewhere around a month. This year, I yanked Bianca out of her last couple weeks of kindergarten and packed up my newborn baby and jumped on an airplane.
It's hard to be away from Eric. I don't have anyone to help me when the baby's crying in the middle of the night. Or to change a diaper once in a while. Or just to hold the baby so that I can eat.
Every night while I'm here, I'm grateful to get through another night. Like it's another check mark on the nearly six-week stay in St. Louis.
I'm not nearly as comfortable here. I only have a handful of clothes to wear, which I have to rotate every couple days. Getting something in the kids' mouths is a major project. But I keep thinking about how this is only temporary and in less than a month now, I'll be back home in my comfortable house where I have everything I need and I know exactly what to expect.
While I'm here, I try to help out with the things my dad needs. I fill up a cup with ice chips and I feed them to him. I try to intervene when my mom pushes food on my dad. He doesn't want it. He has no appetite. But my mom acts like it's a personal affront that he wouldn't want to eat the food she's offering him. If I'm feeding him, he asks me to dump a shake or take the food away. And I do it. Not because I want him to die--which I know starving himself will end up ultimately--but because I want him to be happy. And food does not make him happy. It stresses him out, like it does to me when I'm holding it up to his mouth. He likes the ice chips and I'll feed them to him, until he asks me to stop with the ice chips.
I know what the end result of this trip is probably going to be. I've accepted it. It doesn't mean I don't love my dad. I do. But if you look at the big picture, our life here is just a trip, a temporary ground where we do things, check mark each day, but we aren't quite as comfortable as we will be at our "real" home.
When my dad can be released from his body, he'll be free again. I have to look at it that way. It's the only way I can be on his side of the food struggle.
As I watched him today, I saw him grasp for breath, saw his body shake. I watched him wince in pain while he's sleeping. I know his check-marked days are dwindling.
I can only hope that Miranda is somewhere closeby when his trip is over.
