Santiago,Chile
I´ve said this before, and I will say it again...sometimes the hardest part of a vacation is just getting out of town. December is best described in Spanish: ¨Fue un mes muy pesado.¨ December was a heavy month. Never in my life has this wonderful month felt like an annoying intrusion.
But...to back up.
I arrived home from Mexico quite satisfied. In many ways I felt no need or any
desire to leave town again for sometime. 
(Indeed, I could have stayed in Mexico right through to May it would have been fine by me.) I got home in time for Thanksgiving--always a nice holiday. My cousin Lisa came with her sons, Dustin, and Landon. The day after Thanksgving we all went to Santa´s Workshop--an almost perfect day complete with early winter snowflakes floating through the air.By November we were beginning to see how debilitated my mother had become. Her macular degeneration, which she´d said was getting worse as fall progressed, reached a point where she was almost blind. I took her to her doctor who confirmed the worst. In mid-November he classified her as legally blind. Not a good thing, but at least now there would be services available to her.
As December progressed, it was obvious that she could no longer live alone. I´d come into her apartment and find furniture toppled over. Her loss of vision, coupled
with her profound hearing loss, was a dangerous combination.Days before Christmas I was able to find a spot for her at the Emory House in Morrisonville. She´d have her own room and bath, three meals a day and more supervision. At least she´d be safe.
On Christmas morning, at 4:00 a.m., we received a call from 911 that she´d fallen and could not get up. Steve went over, got her back into bed. I went over at 9:00, packed up a few things, and had her spend the day with us. I told her that she's not have to stay alone again and that one of us would spend the night at Lake Forest until she moved into her new apartment.
Christmas was hard, but there were moments of great blessings. On Christmas Eve I microwaved a tortierre I'd picked up in Lacolle, made a salad, pulled out the presents I'd managed to wrap, and we had ourselves a blessed Christmas Eve at Lake Forest.
On Christmas, I was totally unable to cook dinner so we went to the Jade Buffet for dinner. On the 26th and 27th we spent hours and hours packing up her apartment. On the 28th she moved into her new digs.
I really did not think I´d get out of this alive. My blood pressure was through the roof. I´d not felt this stressed
since I left teaching. I see how stress kills.
But, I did get out. On New Year´s Eve I boarded AMTRAK for NYC, spent a delightful evening with my friend, Angela, in Queens who had a wonderful dinner waiting. We saw in the new year, I slept late on the first and early on January 2nd I left for JFK. Touchdown 6 hours later brought me to Ecuador where I connected to a much shorter flight to Lima, Peru.
I´d arrived. And I was alive. And I knew that once I sat in the garden of Home Peru I´d be able to let go.
And I did!
I really did not think I´d get out of this alive. My blood pressure was through the roof. I´d not felt this stressed
since I left teaching. I see how stress kills.But, I did get out. On New Year´s Eve I boarded AMTRAK for NYC, spent a delightful evening with my friend, Angela, in Queens who had a wonderful dinner waiting. We saw in the new year, I slept late on the first and early on January 2nd I left for JFK. Touchdown 6 hours later brought me to Ecuador where I connected to a much shorter flight to Lima, Peru.
I´d arrived. And I was alive. And I knew that once I sat in the garden of Home Peru I´d be able to let go.
And I did!
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