Oh, it was so hard. I was tired of the long trips. Driving all those hours at a time. However, the reality at the time was that it didn’t matter how I felt. My parents needed me in a serious way and there was no where else I would rather be or nothing else I would rather do than help them. They were both using walkers all the time now. For this trip they both actually needed to be in wheelchairs. I remember Daddy refusing to ride in a wheelchair at the hospital because he felt like Mother needed it more.
This was a quiet trip. Daddy slept almost the entire trip. He would wake up if you talked directly to him or asked him a question. Within five minutes he was asleep again. We didn’t realize how sick he was. Mother had been talking less for several months. ever since her cancer diagnosis.
We stayed in a different hotel this time. This hotelwas tall, and our room was on the 10th floor which made Daddy very nervous. He was only half joking when he told the man at the front desk when we checked in that if there was a fire, he (the man at the front desk) was to personally go to the 10th floor and rescue Daddy first.
We had adjoining hotel rooms. Below my room was a parking lot which was totally filled all day. Daddy loved sitting in a chair by the window in my room and watching cars come into that parking lot, driving around hunting for a spot then leaving. Daddy made up stories to go with the cars. He was really funny as he ‘talked’ to the drivers, trying to point them to an empty spot. It was the only thing that would keep him awake for any length of time. I enjoyed watching him had a good time.
On this trip Mother finally got to see the surgeon. An appointment was made to come back in April for surgery. We did not keep that appointment.
On the way home I decided to take a detour. We had lived in Houston when I was in high school and college. It was on this day that I felt like we needed to drive by our old house and the church we had attended. At the time I remember thinking and not understanding why it was important that I do it on that day. There would be other opportunities. It was after all, an hour and a half out of the way. I didn’t really want to take the extra time, but somehow I just felt ‘compelled’ to do it anyway.
I began to recognize these moments of feeling that something needs to be done, should be done, has to be done even when it makes no sense, as God’s guidance. I never regretted following His leadership at these times (or any time for that matter). They always came at critical times and always made an enormous difference in our situation.
My parents enjoyed seeing our old neighborhood which hadn’t changed at all and our old church with had changed a lot. It gave us a chance to reminisce and share old stories once again. This detour was worth the extra time.
Tomorrow: Spell Cussing for the first time.
When the Family Has Cancer 