Bits Of Babbling

A Bit Sad

During the shower mentioned in the last blog entry, I realized how little time I had left with Meags before I needed to head back to Texas. This afternoon at around 1:00, before she had to go to work, I disovered I only had 1 day left. 24 Hours. 1,440 Minutes. 86,400 Seconds. This was it, the home stretch in a race I didn't want to finish, it still feels like I just got here the other day. Christmas wasn't 3 weeks ago, it couldn't have been.

Where does the time go?

I thought more about all this while in the shower. How it seemed I'd only just arrived. How much I wished I could stay longer. How I wished time would slow down for the last 14 hours we would spend together. How even after one application of shampoo my hair seemed to still be in "hat hair" mode. How I was going to miss her.

The shower is a great place to think. You are alone without anybody to bother you, the hot water is relaxing, the ambient sound soothing. Whenever I'm working late night on something that requires a lot of brainpower, I'll usually take at least one shower. Not only does it help wake up the body at 4am, but it helps me absorb whatever information I'd been reading, think about whatever problem I'd been trying to solve, memorize things I'd been trying to memorize. Some of my best ideas have come to me out of the blue while I've been in the shower.

I also thought about how nice it was of Meags' mom to come get me. She lives 3 hours away from Wolfville and it takes another 40 minutes to get from here to Halifax, yet she insisted on driving me to the airport. This is all kinds of great and really appreciated because it saves money on bus or taxi, possibly hotel, and most importantly it allows Meags to say goodbye to me at the airport rather than wayyyy earlier here in Wolfville. If her mom wasn't driving up here to shuttle me around, Meags wouldn't have been able to make it up to Halifax with me. As unnecessary her trip may be, it is appreciated very much thanks to gleening extra hours of time with Meags rather than an anticlimatic goodbye several hours earlier than I actually leave.

The last thing my thoughts focused on were of my grandfather on my dad's side, aka Abuelo which is Spanish for "grandfather." For many years he has had Parkinson's very bad, leaving him disabilitated and in the care of my Abuela. I'm still amazed at how long she has managed to do such a great job of caring for him. She has had a bit of help now and then from family and people she has hired to stop in for a few hours to help care for him, but most of it is done by her.

He was always a great guy when I was growing up, I loved him very much. It is always sad when I've gone to visit them in recent years and had to see how bad he is, and each time he talks less and less... the words that come out harder and harder to understand, and rarely in English anymore. He was actually the catalyst behind my renewed interest in learning Spanish. I wanted to know what he said without my dad translating. I can remember the exact moment I knew I wanted to learn spanish, the 3 of us (Dad, Abuela, and myself) got him out of his chair and helped him shuffle his feet inches at a time towards his bedroom. He stopped, tilted his head toward me, and mumbled something in soft and hard to understand spanish. My heart just about broke when my dad translated it. He said "I wish you didn't have to see me like this."

Recently Abuelo had a stroke and has become even more unresponsive than normal, he won't even eat. They took him to the hospital and put him on an IV, but it doesn't look like he will have much time left. They are moving him to hospice care and soon will take the IV out, he probably won't have too long left when they do. I'm scared and saddened by the thought that I may have to get off one plane from Canada and board another bound for California. Missing Meags and missing Abuelo at the same time, just thinking about it I can feel tears wanting to well up in my eyes, I think that's it for this entry.

Posted by Michael at January 15, 2005 04:31 PM