~~~ Flashback Post ~~~
Getting the Hell Out of Dodge (March 6, 2015)
After nearly four months in bed, many hours of lost sleep, indescribable emotions, and an “all clear” from the doctor to take our long planned and anticipated anniversary trip to Illinois at the end of the month, my husband encouraged me to come with him to a hunting vendor show several hours away that he had been planning to attend for months.
He woke me up at 4:30am and we were on the road shortly after 5:00am. For someone who used to have a 3:00am daily work schedule seven days a week, I found this almost unmanageable. But I got myself out of bed, washed my face, got dressed, grabbed my pillow and blanket, and off we went for the day.
After the upgrade to smart phones a little over a year ago, our traveling adventures have gotten much more enjoyable. See, I never drive, which means I am the “navigator”… I’ve been told it’s usually helpful for those navigating to accurately give helpful turning and travel information. Great in theory, but unfortunately, I am one of those odd people who seem entirely unable to read a map unless I happen to be going due north. In the past, this has lead to many an argument and I have been known to snap the atlas shut and toss it over into my husbands lap and just say, “Find it yourself!” (you know, as he’s driving). And then along came our best friend Siri, and our driving unpleasantries suddenly nearly become obsolete.
We also, believe it or not, are not often overly "talkative” when alone together… I’m quite a Chatty Cathy myself, but my husband is my polar opposite, and his silence often makes up for my over abundance of words. After nearly eleven years of marriage, I often just have entire conversations with him while doing all the talking myself – inserting what I know he’s thinking but not saying in my little sing-song reply voice, and then answer back and forth in return. It will end with a smirk and a shake of his head, meaning I was spot on.
About an hour and a half down the road I found myself talking, even edging softly into that oh-so-close to the surface hurt that we’ve both been trying to not talk about, or been unable to openly talk about due to the fact that less than 1% of all the people we are living life around right now have no idea of this “journey” we are slowly stumbling through right now. At one point I turned and stated “About five minutes ago you probably starting thinking to yourself ‘What was I thinking asking her to come along… be quiet already!'”… But surprisingly enough, he turned and said, “Actually, I was just thinking how nice it was talking with you.”
We talked about a few things I was hoping to find and purchase beforehand in preparation to what we knew was coming - a birth and a funeral, two words that should never go hand-in-hand.
I wanted to find a pink blanket for at the hospital, as well as for in the casket. I also stated we would purchase two matching blankets, one to go with her, and one for us to keep. I wanted to find a soft pink photo frame to put an ultrasound photo in. I wanted to find a little elastic headband with a light pink flower on it, and I wanted to purchase a special light pink scrapbook, because as hard as it might be, I felt we just needed to carefully document these few and precious moments and memories.
We ended up having a most enjoyable car ride and soon we were parking and heading in to join thousands of other camo clad hunting enthusiasts. We spent several hours there, and afterwards headed out into a beautiful 50+ degree early March sunshine. Thanks to my ever amazing covered bridge locator "app” that my husband had downloaded on my phone a year ago, I batted my eyes and asked him about maybe checking out the covered bridge that showed to be a fairly straight shot down the road we just happened to be on.
With my phone in hand, he easily navigated us right to it, and within ten minutes we walked hand-in-hand through a freshly updated covered bridge with it’s fresh wood and still unblemished red paint. We were only there a few minutes, took a few photos, but as we walked away I was filled with a fullness and smile knowing that while I will never physically get to share with our little Faith her moms great love of the magic and rich history of all things covered bridge, I smiled knowing that while she was still alive within me, we shared at least one walk together through one.
Next we decided to next to a head to a large chain hunting store, another favorite stop of ours, knowing there would be a purchase at their fudge shop, another trip tradition of ours. We also drove through a favorite fast-food restaurant for our usually car meal of chicken ranch wraps, fries, and a malt. We pulled into the adjutant Target parking lot and ate in the car with lighthearted conversation. We slowing quieted as we finished up, knowing soon we would be heading inside.
We remembered our rushed trip to a Target nearly seven years earlier after we got the call from the adoption agency that our birthmom had gone ahead and signed her paperwork, signing her rights over to the agency, and while she still had another 96 hours to change her mind, it was a promising go-ahead to tell people of the little boy in our arms that we’d quietly driven home from the hospital as a “high risk placement” two days earlier. We had immediately driven to the closest Target (an hour away) and stocked up on all things baby we needed that we had not allowed ourselves to purchase prior to placement. Always a fun story to recall.
This time we did not carry smiles and excitement as we slowly walked to the baby and infant section. The blanket isle was disappointingly empty, no pink blankets in multiples. I stopped and slowly put a pink floral headband in the cart, and when I looked up, my husband was no longer next to me. I was pretty unemotional as I continued to walk through a few more isles. No pink scrapbooks, no pink photo frames. I continued to look for my husband and later found him by the checkout. He simply told me he had to leave the baby area, he couldn't do it. I paid cash for the tiny headband and we walked hand and hand to the car. We crossed the road and walked into Walmart.
We walked through their photo frames and found nothing. We walked through their scrapbooks and while it wasn’t exactly what I was wanting, I did place a hot pink scrapbook in the cart. We turned slowly to the left and entered their baby and infant area.
I walked over to the blankets. I felt the tears start welling up in my throat and held up two different light pink plush blankets. I turned and asked which one we should pick, he looked at me and said, either was fine. I chose the one that had some fancy scallops, white backing and a small embroidered elephant on it. I placed two in the cart, and as I turned to leave the area, I was suddenly and absolutely overcome with emotion. I continued slowly pushing the cart but I could no longer see. Suddenly my husband turned and saw me, and he grabbed my arm and said “Keep walking... wipe your eyes… you can do this... this exactly what happened to me at Target and I had to leave… Just keep walking… you can do this..."
And in the middle of the isle, in the middle of Walmart, with the two plush pink blankets resting quietly on the hot pink scrapbook, I nearly absolutely fell apart. My body was wanting to break down into loud choking sobs and huge tears were falling to the floor. My throat was knotted and almost restricting my entire airway. But I kept walking, trying to suck in huge breaths of air, the pressure of his hand on my arm directing me forward.
I had no idea how I would make it through the checkout process as I numbly fumbled around trying to get them out of the cart and into my husband's hands who was bravely scanned them through the self checkout. He double bagged it everything, heaven forbid anyone have to see or look at what we were purchasing. I ran the credit card through the machine, placed the receipt in the bag, and we walked back into the sunshine to the car.
We took deep and quiet breaths in the warm and safe silence of the van. In time we pulled onto the road and started toward home.
We decided to make another Walmart stop in another town along the way to see if we could find some cowboy boots for youngest sons upcoming birthday, which had also been on our list, but we had completely forgotten to look for them on our earlier stops. After finding no boots we decided it was time to be done shopping on this trip and we headed over to one our favorite restaurant Mexican restaurants. It was a restaurant we had first eaten at when we were dating and had gone to visit my husband's sister at college. Ever since, we have always made sure to stop there any time we were in the area. We ordered our favorite dish, chicken nachos, and ended up taking three take home boxes of leftovers home, because neither one was overly hungry. We spent much of our time there that night just enjoying the memories of days earlier and the day out together we had just shared.
As we drove home, we watched the sun set in front of us, and found ourselves each in quiet thoughts of our own. Each mind swirling with many of the same thoughts, though just not audible.
We were both incredibly glad we’d decided to get the hell out of dodge for the day, grateful for the conversations we’d allowed ourselves to have throughout the day, and while parts of the day were hard and heavy, we were also blessed with an amazing time of ease and freedom interwoven throughout.
Living - while waiting on the dying.
Click HERE to continue to our next journal entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment