I didn't leave home that Saturday, June 30th, until about 1:30. Rolf did not go with me; we were waiting for his mom to get out of the hospital. I told my sister, Joy, when she called that I was coming on alone - and she hit the situation on the head with her question.
"Don't you think you should stay and be with Rolf?"
"Well," I said "We think that her hospital stay is an appropriate overabundance of caution. And that being the situation, I have to see Mom and Dad because they're not doing all that well themselves."
It was the truth as I new it. And seems to be true.
My nephew, Russ, picked me up at the docks on his jet ski and took me out to the cove the pontoon boat was parked in. Daddy, Joy, NewBrotherInLaw - NBIL, and some others were swimming. NBIL's sister was on the boat, with her 18 year old down's syndrome daughter. My niece was her age when she died in 1996. She didn't have down's, but there are many similarities.
(Oh, I've done it again. I've had such a good time this last 10 days - and I want to remember it all. But I just can't write it all down!)
Well, before we pulled up the anchor and headed back for lunch, I sat down next to NBIL's sister and said:
"Now, what's going to happen is we're going to all get on the boat and go out to the dam tonight for the fireworks. They will be great. We'll float on inner tubes, or just wear life vests and swim while the fireworks get shot. There will be lots of oohs and ahhs. Joy and I will probably sing some patriotic songs. And then, when it's time to leave, the boat will not start. It's tradition."
NBIL and I had to pull Daddy into the boat, because he can't get up the ladder by himself anymore.
Mama had a wedding to play for that afternoon, so she didn't get in until dinner time. I'd already heard that she'd been sick with diarrhea for 10 days. And that's a sure sign that the
carcinoid tumors are active again. But she was feeling fine - and wasn't worried about spending the evening on the boat. She knew best - she was fine.
Floating among a flotilla of boats, as the sunset colors of the sky changed to frosted apricot and then cobalt blue, the lights of many boats streaking by like a figure skater sees the crowd when he spins on ice as
I spin around and around in my inner tube. Life doesn't often get better than that, but then they started shooting off the fireworks. I missed Rolf terribly.
The air was cold on the boat, so I was putting on my hoodie sweatshirt when Joy tried to start the boat. The sound of a whistle that ran out breath was the signal that we were in trouble again. Twelve on the boat; Daddy saying "Check the Battery" but unable to do it himself. Joy and I finding this hilarious did nothing to sooth NBIL and five members of his family. Russ, Officer Cupcake, and I lifted the motor cover, other boats are beginning to move away, Russ says:
"Try it again"
Joy - "What did you do?"
Russ - "I looked at it."
I remember Daddy's laughter above everyone else's. We'd already pulled in the anchor - again Russ did it. He's the new head of the family, as far as I'm concerned. Twenty-four or five, tall and handsome, so much fun. So is his wife, Officer Cupcake. I know she could take me down, but it's still hard to believe she's a cop!
I called out to a nearby boat asking for a jump as we realized that we were being taken by the current, and right into another boat! So I'm calling over to another boat, while telling Russ to drop the anchor again, which of course he was already doing, but it was taking too long to get it out from under the seat, and we were going to run into the nice and
new white pontoon boat (I'm a little jealous.) The people on the white boat had to push us away, actually had to reach out and push the boat by the time that Russ finally got the anchor back down.
"Try it again" he says.
And the boat starts right up.
Amazed, Joy says: "What did you do?"
"I threw in the anchor!" he says with a
what-do-you-think-I-did grin.
Cheers and Laughter. Smiles and relief.
The memory of laughter and cheers, Daddy's laugh is really loud, sometimes I laugh like him - that's something I never want to forget.
But I would like new
unused boat.
________
Mama and I played Scrabble until late in the night.
Sunday, 7/1 - Mama was hoping that we'd take a road trip to the family cemetery, which I've wanted to visit for years. So, with no air conditioning in the Jeep, we went on our adventure with the roof down, past the
Battlefields of Kelly's Ford, equestrian centers, people tubing down the Rappahannock or Rappidan River, down tiny country roads to a town called Summerduck.
I hadn't been to the cometary since my grandmother died, and that's been twenty-seven years ago. But I remembered that there had been a shed off to the right piled high with snow that day. It wasn't there, but in looking where I remembered it had been, and remembering the six inches of fresh snow on each headstone; I quickly saw their grave site. The last time I was there, I remember the crunch of fresh snow under foot, this time it was the crunch of dead grass.
Mama is as positive and faith filled as a person can be; but Daddy tells us that sometimes she cries at night because she thinks she doesn't have long left. I felt that she was communing with her Mom and Dad, with cousins, aunts and uncles, as she told me stories about them.
Thinking: "Goodbye?" "Hello again?" "Are you really waiting for me?" "Will I be alone?"
