Memories on April Fool's Day

Twenty years ago today, my then-fiance and I went to the County Courthouse during our lunch break and got our marriage license.  We had intentionally planned to get our license that day: I've always loved April Fool's Day - even if I don't have a good idea or an opportunity to pull a prank on someone, I love the idea that I COULD - and also it was the only day that we could coordinate our schedules to make it downtown during business hours before our wedding date less than three weeks later.  

It's a good thing we did it that day, because, as it turned out, on April 2, the next day, my grandmother died.  

My maternal grandmother was the grandparent to whom I was the closest at the time; I saw or tried to see some of myself in her - or I guess I should say I tried to see some of her in me.  Anyway, even though she had been sick for awhile as she struggled through a relapse of breast cancer, I was shocked by the news.  I was grateful that my grandmother had hung on long enough to meet my husband-to-be and to hear about my wedding plans - and most importantly to meet her youngest grandchild, whom she held in her arms not long before she went on ahead, but I was so saddened by the loss that I could hardly put one foot in front of the other.  It was the first death that I had experienced of someone to whom I was close, and I was at a loss of how to even try to cope.  

Needless to say, the next few days were a blur as we made our way to the city where she lived and gathered together as an extended family to pay our respects.  I remember that I didn't think I would be able to sit through the service in the church without bolting for the door because I was afraid my cries would be too loud.  I remember hardly being able to bear the pain of looking at my mom, at my two aunts - one of whom had a two year-old and a two-week-old baby - and most especially at my grandfather, whose sky-blue eyes held such endless sadness that there seemed to be no possibility of ever being able to comfort him.  I remember that I stood with one of my cousins and my fiance long after the rest of the people had gone back to their cars at the cemetery; the funeral director had dismissed us after they'd lowered the casket into the ground, but I just couldn't bring myself to walk away before I'd seen her body buried, one final thing I felt I could do, if not for her than in her honor.  We stood there by the headstones of the other graves around her plot, and I looked for four-leaf clovers while the dirt was placed over her beautiful silver casket, adorned with beautiful tiny daisies.  I remember that I was a little bit comforted by wearing one of my grandmother's sweaters to the funeral; it was the only thing I had of hers besides the opal ring she had given me - "October birthday girl to October birthday girl,"she'd said - when I celebrated my sixteenth birthday.  Years later, I pulled that sweater from the back of my closet and wore it to the funeral of a friend, and in the pocket I found the handkerchief that my dad had given to me at my grandmother's funeral, a reminder of both the tears I had shed and of the love my family shared as we tried to support each other through those rough days.  

I knew my grandmother well enough to know that she would absolutely have wanted "the show to go on," and so, just a couple of weeks after we laid her to rest, my dad walked me down the aisle and I said "I do" to my new husband in front of many of our family and friends, at sunset on the banks of the Mississippi River.  I wore the gerber daisy wrist corsage that was intended for my grandmother during the ceremony; I felt my her absence profoundly that day as I have many days since. 

Wearing the corsage meant for my grandmother

Today, when I think back on that April Fool's Day at the Courthouse, to the days afterwards leading up to the wedding, and to the wedding itself, so many emotions run through me.  I feel lucky, I feel loved, I feel happy for what I have learned and shared and survived.  Twenty years, wow.  Pretty incredible.

My grandfather, at my wedding, just two weeks after he'd lost his wife.
"I'm here for two," he said, and I knew just what he meant.

Part 9 - Going to Rehab

Continued from Part 8 

When we got to the rehab hospital, we checked in and got Dad settled in the bed in his new room.  He was happy because his incision had finally healed enough for him to wear his reading glasses (the staples were close enough to his ear that there had been concern previously about the ear piece possibly dislodging them), and so he relaxed in the bed reading the newspaper while Mom and I unpacked.  

Dad, reading the paper in bed just after we got to Rehab

The Rehab Director came by and did an initial assessment, with the focus being on Dad’s cognition and safety awareness.  I reiterated that we were seeking a short-term stay of about a week so that Dad could get intensive therapies to get him started in his recovery.  He said that the therapists would all do their initial evaluations and then the team would report back to us regarding their recommendations.  With a rehab background, I felt like I understood the process and told him that we would like to have input into the plan and to get recommendations about equipment needs so that we could get the house set up as soon as possible.

Two more physicians came by that night after I'd left to drive the three hours back home; both spoke to my aunt, who was sitting with Dad while Mom went home to change clothes before she spent the night with Dad.  Dad immediately liked the neuropsychologist (I think it was because the guy looked like a runner.); they talked for awhile about the benefits of inpatient therapy and agreed to talk again in a couple of days.  The next doctor was a radiation oncologist who informed my dad that he would be getting the initial phase of radiation at the rehab hospital, after which he could be treated at a facility closer to my parents’ house.  My aunt told the doctor that she thought we had been in contact with another radiation oncologist and that he should come back at another time to speak with my mom.  Dad was somewhat confused about the whole conversation; he wasn't clear about the fact that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer, much less that he was supposed to get radiation in the near future.  

Around 5:30 a.m. the next morning, the nursing tech came into the room and announced that he was there to assist Dad in getting bathed and dressed for the day.  As usual, Dad hadn’t slept very well the night before, and so Mom asked if the shower could be delayed.  “Nope,” nursing tech said, “We have about 40 patients to get ready for the day, and we have to do it before shift change at 7 a.m.”  Hmmmm.  In that case, Mom told him, she would help Dad get ready a little later.  The tech presented her with Dad’s therapy schedule for the day before he went on to the next room.  

The therapy schedule board at the Rehab Hospital

Waiting for therapy to start

It looked like it was going to be a busy day, just the kind that Dad typically would have appreciated and the kind we were expecting as part of the short-term rehab stay.  The schedule said that Dad would get OT, PT, and Speech Therapy (to work on memory) back-to-back starting at 8 a.m. and then more therapy that afternoon.  Good plan, except the OT showed up 45 minutes late, which threw off the entire schedule.  In what became a pattern during Dad’s stay there, the therapists juggled things around to try to fit Dad in, and oftentimes Dad and the family member who was with him were not informed of the changes or the scheduled ended up not being able to be adjusted and some of his therapy got left out.  Dad did a lot of waiting, and, as par for a brain injury like his, he was having trouble dealing with schedule changes or uncertainty.  He asked many times what was next, but the answer didn't seem clear to anyone around.

Mom asked the OT about equipment recommendations during that first session, and the OT said we shouldn’t worry about that yet since she expected Dad to progress so quickly.  About mid-morning, my aunt came again to stay with Dad, and Mom went home for a wardrobe change.  During that time, the facility's radiation oncologist again paid Dad a visit; he told my aunt that he had been told he would be handling Dad’s radiation treatments at that facility.  My aunt told him that was incorrect, that we would be taking Dad to a specialist recommended by Dad's oncologist.  A few minutes after the first guy left, the rehab director came in and told my aunt that patients typically stayed in rehab there for a couple of weeks or more and that they would have a plan to present to the family in the next couple of days.  My aunt passed the info on to my mom and to me; I was uneasy about both of the communications because they were different from what I had heard when I was there just the day before.  In what became another unfortunate pattern in Dad's treatment, there were details to be ironed out with what was going on in this facility, and it was impossible for someone who was off-site to do any ironing.  

Next in our story … Part 10 – First Appointment with the Oncologist 

Road Trips

 My parents took my sisters and me on lots of road trips when we were growing up.  Both sets of our grandparents and the rest of our extended family lived in states other than where we lived, and it seemed like we piled into the station wagon and hit the road fairly often.

Like lots of families during that time period, we traveled on a pretty low budget.  We packed a cooler and a bag with things like colored pencils and paper and a deck of cards, and we were good to go.

We took lots of camping trips, did a good bit of sightseeing and touring, went to Disneyworld and several water parks, and made it to the beach on several occasions.  All of that blurs together as Good Time Family Fun in my Memory Bank.  There were, however, a few specific events during my childhood involving family road trips that I remember as standing out the most, things we did while traveling as a family that I think about again and again, memories that always bring a smile to my face.  I’m not even sure of the exact timeline of these.  All three happened as part of the travel my family was doing - they were side-shows, far removed from the main event; they were spontaneous; and they were unforgettable.

We lived in Albert Lea, Minnesota, when I was in kindergarten.  I loved that house for lots of reasons; I learned to ride a bike without training wheels in the front yard there, my younger sister came home from the hospital as a newborn to that house, and it had a cool laundry chute that went from the second floor to the laundry room in the basement.

One day, our parents were packing the car before we embarked on another road trip, and my sisters and I were in the den gathering up a few books and toys to take with us.  The TV show that was on came to an end, and the next thing that came on was a movie: “The Wizard of Oz.”  I had never seen it before, and I was mesmerized from the start by the tornado scene, the characters, the way it went from black-and-white to color, and the music.

About 30 minutes into the show, my parents completed their last-minute preparations for the trip.  I’m sure they were ahead of schedule for the time they had planned to depart on the trip; my dad hated to be late and went to great effort to make sure our family was on time wherever we went.  He came into the den and started his battle cry of “Load up!  Time to go!” but then saw us sitting on the floor, as he termed it, “glued to the TV.”  When he realized what we were watching, he and Mom sat on the couch behind us, and we watched the rest of the movie together, with Dad singing along to every song in the movie: from “We’re Off to See the Wizard” to “The Merry Old Land of Oz” and “If I Were King of the Forest.”  The movie and the music were great, and I’ll never forget how time seemed to stand still as my family sat there in the den that day, entranced, entertained, and together.

A few years after that, my family had moved to another state, and we were in the car again on a road trip.  I don’t remember where we started or where we ended up, but I do remember the best part of that trip:  Dad was driving along the highway while the rest of us looked out the window.  I don’t know who saw the little carnival in the hillside first, but I do remember the moment when all of had it seen it.  My sisters and I oohed and aahed at the Ferris wheel and the other rides we saw.  It looked like fun, but we were On the Road and On a Schedule.  Probably no one in the world was more surprised than we were at that exact moment in time when, without a word, Dad pulled onto the two-lane road at the foot of the hillside and started driving towards the carnival.  I remember thinking I was dreaming.  He pulled into the gravel parking lot, parked the car, and said, “Who’s up for some rides?”  Better than Christmas!

 When I was a pre-teen and even into my high school years, my family celebrated New Year’s Eve by staying overnight in a Holidome about 100 miles from where we lived.  My sisters and I each got to invite a friend, and, once we got to there, our parents pretty much unleashed us in the open space inside the hotel.  We ran in the halls, jumped on the beds, rode up and down the elevators, went into the sauna room, ordered room service, watched music videos on MTV (which we weren’t allowed to have at home), and swam in the indoor pool.  Just enough freedom, lots of fun, excellent people-watching (one year we watched a woman swim laps in the pool for hours in a shower cap) – it was perfect.

I’m not sure if there is a specific lesson from or a point to looking back at memories like these, other than just remembering and thinking about how much fun we had together as a family.  Maybe there’s a little bit of a “Take time to smell the roses” lesson in there, and that we certainly did.  We definitely appreciated each opportunity, each day, and each other along the way, and for that, as well as the memories that time will not allow us to forget, I will be forever grateful.

I remember riding in the backseat of the car with my sisters, barreling

down the highway on family trips, listening to Dad sing this song.