In hindsight

When I was a teenager, my goal was to Get Out of Dodge. I wanted to graduate and leave my hometown, which felt claustrophobic and slow to me; the world was waiting, and I wanted to see it all.

And so I went as far as I was allowed, about two hours away. And then I got married, and I went to grad school, which was seven hours away. I had a child, and my mom had a serious health scare, and I had my first inklings of doubt about whether being far away was all it was cracked up to be. It brought me good, and we began to really set down roots and establish ourselves as a family, but being even a firmly rooted tree can be disorienting when you realize that the other trees which might have sheltered and been sheltered by you in storms, had you gone a different path in life, are nowhere near. You make new connections, but there’s nothing quite like family.

And then we moved another seven hours away. Seven hours was far enough, if a bit of a haul by car; fourteen is very, very daunting. We moved for good reasons, ones that I cannot see having ignored or second-guessed, but…

Today I got a phone call from my mom, and my dad was in an ambulance being taken to the hospital. His blood pressure was scarily low; his blood sugars were insanely high. He was retching and in intense pain in his abdomen. As I type, he’s in the ER, undergoing tests as they try to solve the matter of what’s wrong with him, besides dehydration. My mom is beside him…alone. My brother and I are phone calls away, but too far to hop in the car and join her immediately.

The world is small these days, but it’s still a big, big place, particularly when you’re a long way away from where you want to be at the moment. I wish I could be holding Dad’s hand, hugging my mom, talking to the doctors myself and understanding what they’re saying with my own ears. I wish I could bring my mom a drink, get my dad whatever will bring him comfort. I wish my brother was there with us, so that we could all support each other – four firmly rooted trees, protecting each other from the buffeting winds.

When Eric’s dad had heart surgery a while back, he was lucky to be able to fly down to be with him. We weren’t so lucky to be able to fly down quickly when he got married this month, which felt wrong in countless ways. Wisconsin has become our home, though it took a long time for it to be that way (seven years, the same amount of time it took for Toledo to become “home” before this), but the thing it lacks is Our People.

I haven’t felt this alone here in years.