This week Max and I are leaving for our long-planned (well, since last November) trip to England and Scotland. Tomorrow I may or may not post here, and then the blog will be “on hiatus” as they used to say about poorly-performing television shows in the 1980’s, until about April 1. Try to muddle through until then.
Leaving our home is scary but also exciting of course. Polly will be staying with her boyfriend/dogsitter and I am trying not to lose it with too many nightmarish daydreams of illness, accidents, and sudden death.
My Dad unfortunately has to have the battery for his heart pacemaker replaced while we are away. The procedure couldn’t be scheduled any sooner and certainly I don’t want him to wait. My brother will escort him home the very same day as the procedure. Google tells me there is a small risk of bleeding and infection. If my Dad suffers any pain following the procedure, he must immediately inform staff and measures will be taken to make him comfortable, according to the Interwebz. So great, I’ll be in London, and my 90 year old Dad will be bleeding, opioid-addicted, and septic. This is pretty much how my brain works.
My biggest worry is of course Sarah. How will she react to her home being empty? (Neighbors will be looking out for our house, and both the dogsitter and cleaners will be visiting). But we won’t be there at night, hanging out, and we won’t be home at all for a stretch of days. Also, does she want to come with us? Fly behind the plane?
We are getting Sarah’s wheelchairs ready to give to a project that is shipping medical supplies for the disabled to Zambia. A few months ago, I really found it difficult to think of giving up her wheelchairs but when we got an email from a liaison to this project asking if we would care to contribute any supplies, Max and I decided that Sarah would really enjoy the idea of her two chairs (one power chair, one stroller-type of chair) going to kids in Zambia. One of Sarah’s favorite books when she was younger was called Zoom! by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko. It’s about a girl who chooses a superfast powerchair from the “Powerchair Store” and then becomes a heroine racing her little brother to the hospital when no ambulance is available. Great story.
The dead child memoir I am reading right now, Finding the Words by Colin Campbell, which is really quite good, talks about bringing little talismans and adopting little rituals about your deceased child (or children for Colin) into your new everyday life to memorialize them and keep them always with you as you may be building a new life.
In preparation for the Zambian Project people coming over today to pick stuff up, we removed Sarah’s little personal items and chachkes from her wheelchairs. She had a lot of the little clip-on dangling toys that typical kids would put on their backpacks but that she put on the various wires and straps of her chairs. There were Minions, Shopkins (Sarah went through a long Shopkins phase after she was introduced by her friend Chrissy Grube), Whiffer Sniffers, and lots of animals.
So I took the Strawberry Twirl Ballerina Whiffer Sniffer and clipped it onto my travel purse to come with us to the U.K., and the animal and minion clip-ons will ride on our other bags. Sarah will be there with us.
The First Year Without Sarah 