11 Years Ago Today (part 2)

May 22, 2001.

I don’t remember much about today. I just talked to my sister Robyn and she remember my Granny, and my aunts (my mom’s sisters)  driving down and eating with them.  I have no recollection of that. I do know that my granny was in a bad place – her youngest child had just passed away not long before my mom. Robyn remembers Granny saying “ I can’t go through this again, I just can’t.” But she did – although it was hard. She’s buried two of her children – doesn’t seem quite right does it??

I remember four specific things about today.

First, I called my friend Mrs. Smith early in the morning and explained why I wouldn’t be at school that day. I started rambling off all the things that weren’t done in my class room and she said “I’ll take care of it” and she did. I didn’t do one more thing in my room or with my report cards or anything. She took care of it.  Later, she took care of me, but today, she took care of all my stuff.

Second, they were painting a mural on an outside wall of that small hospital in Marathon. I watched the painter paint. I know it was an underwater scene but I can’t tell you anything else about it.  It seemed like it was taking forever!

My sister Robyn is a nurse and the third thing had to do with her.  She had to give our Mom CPR on the beach.  Someone came up and told her they had called 911 and helped her with chest compressions, but afterwards, nobody else saw or could remember that person. Kind of strange, huh??  I watched her switch between being a daughter and being a nurse. She would come in and check Mom’s chart like a nurse. Then, she’d go out into the hallway and cry. She flip-flopped back and forth the whole day.

The last thing I remember may be the sweetest, but to non-church people, it will seem strange.  My family had gone to a church in Marathon on Sunday and filled out visitor cards. They had marked “just visiting” and yes, we have a home church.  Tuesday night, two ladies from that church came to the hospital. I think only Patti and Robyn and I were there. They said “Is there anything we can do for you?” We have yet to figure out how they knew what happened, how they connected the story they’d heard to the people who had visited on Sunday, or how they matched that to us. . No idea.  It was the nicest thing I’d ever heard of.  They have no idea how much that meant. I hope I can do that for someone else one day!

I don’t remember sleeping.  Isn’t that strange? I can’t remember eating.  I know that I did sometime, but I can’t remember it. I know one time they sent me back to the house to go to sleep and I swam laps in the pool. It was gray outside and I just swam back and forth and back and forth. Maybe it was nighttime – I just can’t remember.