Evacuation

A teddy bear made out of my dad’s golf shirt. The ceramic bride and groom that topped our wedding cake thirty years ago. Jewelry. The crucifix that hangs in our bedroom. Our wedding album. Our wedding picture. My dad’s painting. His felt hat. Documents. Passports. Cash. Checkbooks. A few framed photographs. One packed suitcase. My mother, her suitcase, her medication, her safe, her wheelchair.

"Don't let her go to bed on her thoughts." – Sage advice from my neighbor Diane

June could have behaved a bit better in her introduction to the summer of 2016. I’d rather blame the month than blame cancer, the medical community, or God. June will come and go and she will not linger in any need for forgiveness. A good thing as I am not in a forgiving mood.

On a quiet Wednesday night in a New Jersey hotel room, I rediscovered Dan Fogelberg. My niece was texting me with YouTube videos of Troye Sivan “sipping waterfalls” in Youth and James Bay singing a directive that none of us needs to wear a Best Fake Smile and “you don’t have to care so don’t pretend,” when I harkened back to what I was listening to in my twenties and I thought of Dan and through the technological magic of Pandora and iTunes, I stepped back into his music and a past life.