Dear John, Week 6
Dear John,
This has been both an emotional and difficult week, in so many ways. I knew that by this stage of the trip, things would become more stressful, more difficult, and more emotional as the number of days away from home keep piling up and the littles struggle with homesickness and living on the road. I have to say, you would be surprised at how well they ARE doing. So far, there really have only been one or two days that were awful and I think that says something, considering we are together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in a space that is roughly 288 square feet.
The Grand Canyon North Rim was quite the driving accomplishment for me. There were no available spaces in the campground, so I had two choices, dig deep for the strength to sleep in a dispersed site, alone, with no one aware of our location and no cell service, or drive further away from the park and hope that there were sites available there. I have really wanted to try camping in dispersed areas, so I thought I would check it out. We drove off of the main road for about a quarter of a mile and saw another camper. There were three areas that were clearly used as campsites, so I backed into one.The man from California who was parked “across the street” offered to help me back into the site as I was already almost finished. He, like many people, seemed surprised that I jimmied into the tight space so easily! Another trucker badge for me! We set up and within a few minutes,
Alena found a piece of wooden bark with the carving “DAD” on it. It was just laying on the ground. Then, she also found a heart shaped stone in the same area. We all felt as though you were telling us, “It will be OK to stay here,” so I ended up staying there for two nights.The first night was fine until someone came in at 11:00pm to set up a tent near us. I watched them between the curtains, heart racing until I was convinced that they were your average campers. In the morning, when I saw them, I giggled for having thought that they were people I might need to be afraid of. They were a small group of classic camping, hiking guys. There were three of them.
The second night, I wasn’t afraid. I figured that if we hadn’t died on the first night, we would probably make it through the second! Sometimes I feel uncomfortable and worry that someone will try to take advantage of us, noticing that I am the only adult, a woman, with two young children – even though nothing has happened to make me feel this way. But I dig deep for some extra courage and strength and I keep going, keeping my eyes open!
The week started with our trip in Zion. A place this you and I never really knew about, and thanks to Alicia, became something on my “Must Do List.” I wanted to hike The Narrows. I wanted to hike IN the river with 2,000 foot cliffs surrounding me. I researched the hike and learned the very best way to do it. Early in the morning. Before the crowds. Before the heat. The day we did the hike was day 36 of the trip. It marked the day we drove you back to Mayo for the clinic appointment with a sarcoma expert. You had a temperature, and the clinic told us to go to the Mayo ER first in order to get checked out before going to our hotel (we decided not to take CeeCee, it was too hard for you to get into her, you were too weak.) When we got to the ER we were thrilled! For the first time, all of your vitals were normal! That had NEVER happened. They did an x-ray and saw some fuzziness in your lung – previous hospitalizations had determined that it was slight fluid build-up from inactivity due to being in the hospital for 35 days. But, I’ve now learned that ERs don’t read the notes from previous hospitalizations. Neither do ICU wards. They treat only what is immediately in front of them – which I understand, but I think that this shouldn’t be so black and white. Anyway, they decided that they wanted to keep you overnight for observations, which messed up our clinic appointment, but I planned to deal with that in the morning. Alicia and I left you to go and check into our hotel and get something to eat – ER snacks weren’t cutting it and our tummies were complaining. You were fine. Better than any previous ER visit.
We were gone for less than 2 hours. I called before leaving the restaurant to return to you because I had a weird feeling that something had happened. Nothing had. The nurse said that you were stable and watching Food Network Television. Classic. So we headed back, joking about how even with no real symptoms, you were again being admitted. We joked that you were being admitted because the nurses always thought you were sweet and cute and probably just wanted to keep you around. Then I walked into your ER room and stopped dead in my tracks.
First, I heard the alarm, screaming in terror from the monitor, and I looked up at the numbers. Your blood pressure and heart rate were at numbers I had never seen before. There were no medical staff in your room despite the blaring alarm. You looked at me, with an oxygen mask over your mouth – that hadn’t been there before – and asked me with pleading eyes, “What’s happening?”
My own heart started fluttering and racing, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” I told you and quickly walked up to the nurses station where your nurse stood very calmly looking at some papers. “We are aware of what’s going on,” she told me, “we are working on it,” she said so calmly that it both put me at ease to know that she wasn’t freaked out and scared the crap out of me that THIS didn’t shock her. They put you on a breathing machine and immediately your blood pressure settled down. Then, of course, a simple observation room was out of the question. You were taken to the ICU. This began what would be your longest hospitalization. You were there for over 30 days, stayed in three different hospitals, and I had to leave you for most of one day in order to drive home to get CeeCee so that we could afford to stay there that long. We were left with No Nothing.
So, as I put my feet in the cold river water of the Virgin River and began hiking in the coolness beneath the towering cliffs, I smiled. As I realized that the smile was creeping into my cheeks and eyes, I began crying.
I cried because I was happy. I was truly happy. I was enjoying life. And I cried because I was sad; because I instantly wanted to share this moment of my life with you, standing beside me.
At the campground near Zion, we met Gina and her family. Gina works at the hotel and lives at the campsite. The littles found her kids and started playing with them, and then of course we started talking. Instantly, we felt this connection, like long lost sisters which neither of us had ever had growing up. After only a few hours, she offered to cook for us after we returned home from the hike. We ate what would have become your favorite meal… bacon wrapped hotdogs topped with fresh tomatoes and grilled onions. It tasted a lot like a BLT – and you would have been addicted to them. We sat, after supper, while the kids played in the pool and talked about our lives and just shared.
She offered to take us to a special swimming hole the next night and wanted to cook some shrimp ceviche for me. I almost fell out of my chair. She had no idea how many times you had said that you wanted to try ceviche, but I was never sure about cooking with lime juice, so we put it off as something we would eat on a trip someday. For me, that someday was here.
Gina forgot to lessen the spices, so I got the full strength version. And…. I loved it! Yes, it had some heat to it, but not the kind of heat that melts out the back of your throat and leaves you gasping for a cold gulp of milk with every bite.
“It’s just that warmness, it heats up your mouth but leaves you wanting more because it’s so good!” Gina had said. And that was exactly it! I agreed with her as I filled my bowl with a third helping. Now I know what ceviche tastes like. Authentic, home-made ceviche that I can try to mimic someday.
She took us to the swimming hole, and the kids played on the rope swing, and happily jumped from the rocks as we soaked our feet in the cool waters of the Virgin River, several miles from the spot where my feet were in the same water the day before.. It had been a brutally hot few days, and the shade of the trees surrounding the river, plus the cool water swirling around my feet, gave me some idea of how the people who live in this heat survive it. Gina agreed, you get up early and get things done during the coolness of the morning, and then hide during the afternoon heat if you are able to. Once the sun has lowered in the sky, people emerge and enjoy the outdoors until late in the night as things cool off slowly. I liked the rhythm of these days, and of course it helped that I didn’t have to work during those hot hours of the day like Gina and her family did.
I sat between Gina and her mother in the river. Her mother, who spoke little English, smiled and shook my hand when Gina translated for her why I was on this trip alone with the three girls. As the kids misbeheaved or wanted our attention, the language barrier was invisible as Gina’s mother and I understood each other as women, mothers, and as human beings. We were able to communicate with one other with knowing glances, smiles and giggles. It reminded me of when you and I were in Germany and Tante Annemarie told her sons in German, “You don’t need to tell me what Kristyn just said. We are women. We understand each other.” This was the same language.
The next morning, you could feel the weight of our sadness as we drove further and further away from Zion, from Springdale, UT, and from our new friends. We would have loved to have stayed much longer, but I also knew that it was time to move on. So we went to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
The littles have been begging me to go horseback riding on this trip at some point. Now, at the Grand Canyon, they asked again, having seen signs for Mule Rides. I said that I would look into it, and was surprised that they would be able to go on a ride without me also going along. I WAS NOT going to take the chance of having hives from sitting on a mule for even an hour. Remember the days when I would hold the reins of the horse Alicia was riding each week at her lesson and come home with hives that lasted for two days, wheezing and sniffling for hours? I wasn’t going to tempt fate here, so far away from home. The woman who scheduled the trips told me that I could ride the shuttle bus and just wait for the girls to return from their ride. I booked it. The shuttle driver, a weathered classic Western cowboy, walked all of us up to where we would saddle up the mules. When it became obvious that I wasn’t riding, he told me about a spot about 100 yards from the corral where, in his words, “You can sit with a view that will make you feel like you have died and gone to heaven.”
He followed me part of the way to make sure that I had found it. I did. I sat in peace with my coffee, my favorite music, my knitting, and my view. 
Alone. And then, of course, I cried. Alone. Alone. Alone. Both a blessing and a curse. I will forever more be alone… without you. But at the same time, it was so beautiful. I sat and worked on my knitting project, ripping out over 20 rows of knitting mistakes,
resetting my project and finishing my coffee before the mules returned.
And now I begin the part of this trip that I knew would be hard for me. The part of the trip that we were supposed to do together. The part that we had planned to do, together. The part that I will now do, alone. The part of the trip where I will fulfill the promises that I was unable to keep during your days here with me. The next few weeks will be hard, emotional, sad, beautiful, distracting, fulfilling, and basically…..
emotionallly unpredictable.
These next days are the ones that I’m truly taking back….. For you.
Until next week,
Love you forever,
Your trucker,
June 30, 2018
Day 42 of 83
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