Friday, October 30, 2009

MINI VACATION

I was afraid to write in this blog as my BFF reads it.
I was invited to celebrate her 80th birthday in the Berkshires in Mass. It was to be a surprise. Our two daughters made all the arrangements and when that was done THEN they told me that I HAD to go.
If I had been asked I would have said "impossible" but daughter Sabrina arranged it all with Sabra my BFF's daughter. So here I was finding myself in cars and in airplanes and in the North.
Old Dad was with Sabrina for the long week end.

We surprised my friend in a restaurant.
She was shocked and near tears when she saw me.
She did not know that a brunch was going to be offered the next day at her son's mini mansion in the mountains.
The whole family was to be there, all kids and grandkids.
So that too turned out to be a big surprise for her as it was
still 1 week before the actual birthday date.
I was enchanted by it all. I was relaxed. Most of all I slept without waking up to check on things. I slept like a rock.
A glass of wine probably helped.
Everything was fun and food. My favorites.
Lucky I only gained one pound. So back to W W it is.

I figured out that during this visit there was another life.
People meet, people eat together, people laugh.
People have to repeat for my hard of hearing or hearing loss but they did not seem to mind.
My kids sometimes roll their eyes when they have to repeat something for the third time. I remember doing that to my mother who probably gave me this inheritance. But what the hay. I am still walking and cooking and doing whatever I can to keep it all together.
Outside this house , outside this village, outside this state, outside just plain outside with other people there is life, there will be life after Alzheimer if Bob goes first.
If I go first then what? Hey I am not coming back to tell you about it. No doubt relief from worries. Relief in either scenario. Relief.

How did the old Bob behave, the talks about it are somewhat sketchy. No one wants to say that he was difficult, no one wants to admit to much of anything. Whatever.
I slept, I talked till all hours in the night with a friend I had known for 53 years. Perhaps we will never make it again to visit together but this was just grand.

The New England villages have not changed since I travelled there 40 years ago. They are quaint, no high rises, no Mc D's, no Walmarts , lots of antique stores and lots of charming houses. Many of them kept by New Yorkers who like to visit the Berkshires on the week end.
You got to love it. You got to admire the city counsel who keep things the way they were and do not try to make it more profitable with more commerce. Farms are still farms, not builders filled bank accounts. Wish we would do this in our town but the apple orchards are filling up with houses and what a shame that is.

Loved my outing. The first in many years that I left my husband to someone else to take care off. Wow!
He did not seem any worse off. Did not know I was gone, I am sure.

Must try that again, perhaps in the spring.

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