Across The Country To Say Goodbye.

 I am just back from a turn-around trip to California where I went to see my brother who is very ill. Literally a turnaround. My oldest son, Lock, went with me.  We flew out on Friday, spent the night in a hotel, visited my brother on Saturday and flew back to Connecticut early Sunday morning: a test of 80 year-old physical and emotional stamina if there ever was one!

We went to say goodbye. We went bearing messages of love from other members of our family. How long his transition will take, I do not know, but my wonderful, talented, funny, younger brother is well into it and I doubt that it will be long.  After visiting with him for an hour or so, my son and I sat outside on a red bench in the bright California sun and wept.

A single cheerful diversion occurred when, in order for my brother to nap soundly, we left for a while. Holly Goldberg Sloan, writer of lovely books: I'll Be There and Counting By Sevens, and friend of my son's,  picked us up in her bright orange car and took us for a long walk along the Pacific Ocean near where she lives with her illustrator husband, Gary. We stopped to drink coffees. That is, I did. Holly drank a juice made from cucumber, parsley, kale and spinach. Ack! It tasted like liquid salad and positively screamed GOOD FOR YOU! Even Holly thought a bit of apple juice might have helped.

Sitting at the wobbly round table, our knees pressed together, Holly showed Lock and me--both I Phone novices-- how to photograph our next-day boarding passes for Delta Airlines. At 6:00 AM the next morning, he and I both executed this maneuver successfully and stood in line, our cellphones at the ready for scanning. The young man in  front of me was struggling to find his pass on his phone and was impatiently waved aside by the security person, who reached for my phone to scan instead. And it worked! 

A silly splash of victory in an ocean of sadness, grief and helplessness.