9.28.11

AYNSLEY:
And now begin the difficult days. The days when we have to start going back to our lives. Dad has the biggest adjustment, for sure. He's been sleeping on mattresses on the floor or cots with renegade springs every night for the last 9 months. He hasn't gone anywhere but the house, work, the Kline or the hospital. He hasn't stopped worrying about Mom's comfort. But Ross and I have adjustments, too. Ross started back to school today. I'll fly home on Friday and won't be back to Seattle until after the baby is born. This feels like a really long time, especially since I've been coming back every three weeks for the past six months. I'll start having more and more moments that I want to share with Mom and am unable to.

Already, today, I was proud of the outfit that I threw together for Rosh Hashana services with a combination of my own clothes that I packed (remember that I was anticipating being in Seattle for a week and it's spilled into two and a half. And when I was packing, it was 80 degrees both in NY and Seattle) and clothes that I pilfered from Mom's closet and was pretty pleased with myself. Every time I manage to put together an outfit that I think she would be proud of, I want to tell her about it. And up until she lost her vision, I would always send her a photo for final approval. So today, ready to go to temple, I almost called for her to approve my look. It's strange to be in the house with Dad and Ross and not her. In some ways, it's easy; I can almost pretend she's in a different room or on a trip. But I can't really sustain that for long before I notice the bags of cranes, the piles of sympathy cards, the bouquets of flowers, her clothes still in boxes packed up from the Kline.

Today begins the difficult days. The out of town well-wishers have left, Gary went home today, I should log back into my work email tomorrow. Soon enough, we will be back in our daily grinds. Dad will go back to work. The Pea will grow bigger. Ross will get engrossed in school. And there will forever be a hole in our hearts.

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And now, a shout out. Mom's supervisor at Eddie Bauer dropped off an amazing gift basket this evening while we were at services. It's full of adorable baby gear: ridiculously adorable clothes, a very generous gift card, tiny little nail clippers, the cutest little bath towel you've ever seen (it has ears!), etc. And we got a separate letter that they made an extremely generous donation to the Metropolitan Seattle Sickle Cell Task Force. Mom's coworkers have just been amazing and gone out of their way throughout her illness to offer their support and well wishes. Tonight we were humbled by their love and good will. Thank you thank you thank you to all of you wonderful people who were lucky enough to spend 8+ hours a day for the past few years with Mom.