One Door Closes...

I have had a whirl-wind couple of weeks. My Mom passed away very early on a Tuesday morning. Wednesday I had a telephone interview. Thursday morning I flew to San Jose for another job interview. Friday I flew back to Arizona and was joined by my husband, my son and my younger brother. Saturday was the memorial service. Monday was my youngest's 21st birthday. The boys left on Wednesday. and 10 days later, with the car packed to the brim, I headed for home - with a stop for a flurry of interviews in Nebraska on my way home. I made it, but it was the journey itself that I want to write about today.

I realize now that I felt very trapped by the situation in Tucson. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that my Mom would hang on for 8 months after my Dad passed. I remember saying at the time, "I'll just rent a house for a couple of months", feeling sure that she wouldn't stay with us even that long. Even though we had a spectacular view of the mountains, and wildlife abounded in our back yard, I felt trapped. Life was out there - beyond my reach. I was in wait-mode, and I hate waiting. It is such an effect point in life. The only thing I could cause, was to keep Mom comfortable and somewhat entertained. I had begun to feel like I would never get my participation in life back. A sort of numbness enshrouded me as I waited, unwilling and perhaps unable to feel anything.

As I started out on my cross-country drive I wondered, "I should be excited... why don't I feel that flutter of excitement in the adventure of this?" I tried to create it, but - nothing. Equipped with a route print-out from google maps, and the Garmin that Danny had lent me, I climbed onto the freeway and started out with the same kind of numbness surrounding me. The first day I crossed Arizona and drove into New Mexico, stopping in the tiny town of Hatch to pick up some of their famous peppers to bring home. The Rio Grand runs through Hatch, but it was a pitiful excuse for a river - more like a stream - cloaked in small trees and fields where they grow all kinds of peppers. I stopped at one of the many road-side stands where three women were stringing peppers with deft fingers into all kinds of beautiful arrangements. I bought a variety of traditional strings from the young Hispanic man, loaded them into my back seat, atop the blanket covering the load of artwork from my Mom's, and got back on the highway.

Still, no excitement. After stopping in Santa Fe the first night, I made it all the way to Goodland Kansas the second day. Only once that day did I feel anything - and that was somewhere in Colorado when off in the distance I saw a couple of towering mountains, and my heart lept for just a moment. It was harvest time and there was a steady stream of trucks on the road outside my hotel, dumping their loads into mountains of golden corn to be shipped to God knows where at the nearby train depot.

I then stopped in Kearney Nebraska for a few days which were laden with interviews, presentations and tours. Everyone there was nice. They were beyond nice, they were kind, and funny, and smart, and lovely people. The job itself sounded like a challenge, but I felt that it would be a lot of fun. Of course, they were bringing two other candidates to the campus to interview, so there was no point in getting my hopes up, but I felt very comfortable there. Comfortable, but still nothing beyond that.

I set out on Saturday morning for the toughest part of the drive, across Nebraska and Iowa. Long and flat and straight for most of Nebraska, I wasn't sure the car needed me to do anything except navigate around all the trucks. I was listening to a book on CD, and if it weren't for the story, I am pretty sure I would have fallen asleep! Then somewhere in Western Iowa the ground began rolling, and as I came up over a hill, flanking both sides of the freeway, there were dozens of huge wind turbines. Again I felt my heart start to race as I tried to keep the car in my lane and see both sides of the road at the same time. They rose like giant trees, whose leaves were blowing in unison on either side of me. They were graceful and lovely. But as soon as they receded in my rear view mirrors, the numbness settled around me again.

After spending the night in a hotel along the Mississippi River, I began my final leg of the journey. It was raining. I crossed Illinois and drove out of the storm. With partly cloudy skies I skirted Chicago and then along the lake shore of Indiana. And then I saw it. A big blue sign hung across the road far ahead of me, "Welcome to Michigan" I knew it said, and I started to cry. Tears were pouring down my cheeks as I drove beneath it, and I realized that I had really thought I would never get home. The sun was shining brightly as I passed beautiful multi-colored forests, and crossed rivers that had actual water flowing in them. There was an urgency in my heart as I thought, "I am almost there!" Most of the state passed my windows in a kind of blur, as I saw familiar signs for familiar places and my heart sped up once again. It was all I could do to keep my vision clear enough to drive as I neared home, fighting the tears that kept threatening to flood my view. As I turned the corner onto my very own street, I couldn't hold them back any longer, and by the time I pulled into my driveway, I was sobbing. I had made it. I was finally home, and life could start again.