Comfortably Numb III

We both fell asleep on the couch and woke a couple hours later to cold tea and someone on NY1 reading us the newspaper. I felt relaxed and drifted in and out of sleep for a while longer listening to him field calls for work and set up travel dates. I still had to buy my flights home but wasn't in any hurry, Dan knows I'll be back soon and just lets me be for now.

I heard Jospeh make reservations for the Rainbow room at the top of Rockefeller, and smiled at the thought of finally seeing that view. I remember back in 2004; Leann and I toured around NYC and talked about all of the things we wanted to try once we could afford to...the Rainbow room was on that list. Joseph has a list of his own of places and experiences he would like to have around Manhattan and I couldn't be happier to be his plus one. I fell back asleep thinking about what I have to wear and wondering if I would have time to shop.

Comfortably Numb II

I slept for two days; I was in and out of consciousness but I don't think I left the room. Joseph would stop in with tea and small portions of food and treats...keeping me in the back of the house where I could rest peacefully. It was 3am when I finally decided to crawl out of bed and get my thoughts back together.

I stood in the shower until it ran cold then laid in the bathtub until all of the hot air left out the shower doors. I felt relieved but still sad...I don't know what I was excepting to feel.

I heard a light knock on the bathroom door, "hey, everything alright?" It's the first time I actually made noise in the house and it just so happened to be in the middle of the night. "Yes, sorry I just wanted to clean up a bit. I'll be out in a few". I grabbed an oversized towel to wrap my hair in then threw a robe around me.

I walked out into the front of the house where I found Joseph making bacon, egg and sausage. "I put the kettle on for some tea, I imagine you're quite hungry". He wasn't smiling at me, but his look was soft like he wanted to make me feel comfortable and relaxed without bombarding me with his own affection and thoughts. "I'd love some tea. Sorry I woke you".

I moved around him at the stove and grabbed some milk out of the fridge, I still felt exhausted. "It's never a problem Natalie, let's eat". The silence was never awkward between us...like old friends we just found comfort in being around one another.

Comfortably Numb I

Joseph picked me up in Terminal D at LaGuardia...the same place he has for over a year. It's nice to be back in Queens where I can slip in my other life and recharge. He always gets out to take my luggage and open the door for me, he doesn't care that traffic cops are yelling at him or about the line of cars forming behind his while the drivers lean on their horns and curse out their windows...I laugh at the spectacle he creates. He is the only person I know that can be mid conversation about something intimate then casually roll down his window to tell the guy trying to merge illegally that if he hits his truck he's going to pull him out through his windshield. I remember one trip between the airport and his home we got into three fights...not with each other but with other drivers. In the beginning it used to drive me crazy, I was embarrassed and annoyed but after a few months of the same shit happening I could see why...I think there were even a couple of times that I leaned over and honked the horn before he had a chance. He says it's the Irish in us...it makes me miss my father and his lunatic ways.

Joseph has become a dear friend to me, I trust him completely...maybe it is our Irish but I find comfort that he can understand where I come from and hold no judgement towards me. I don't know how long I will be graced with his friendship but I'm grateful that he has become a large part of my journey. I wonder if he understands the depths of what I have done to create my life...I wonder if he knows he is cemented into my story.

I watched a cabbie cut across three lanes and try to get in front of us, I roll my eyes and laugh watching Joseph lean out the window while shaking his fist at the cabbie trying to cut us off.

Welcome to New York, now get the fuck outta my way!

A Love, A Loss, And Peace XXX

I left the pictures with Erin, he promised to deliver them to Trina's husband...if she decides to throw them out then so be it. I dropped Patty back off at the airport and hit the highway to Toronto not sure if I was going to fly home or head south to Manhattan...I'll decide when I get there.

Patty, Erin and I agreed to meet later in the year to bury him with his father and until then he would stay where we last visited him. Luckily I had my grandfather's will which was witnessed by my father's older brother...he wrote a letter stating that my father could be buried with their father as he was the executor. But, that would never stop my family from following through with last wishes, were funny like that. Like I said, come hell or high water, in the daylight or night...he will rest with his father.

Hard to believe that just over three weeks ago a dear friend of mine took his own life, followed by the loss of my father. It all felt like so much and still does but I have to look to the good if I am going to come out the other side. I got to hold each of their hands and tell them I love them, I got to say good bye and that is an incredible gift that was afforded to me. I feel relief for both knowing that their suffering is done and that doesn't mean I have to take it on. I got an agent for my manuscript and haven't had much time to celebrate, but now, everything seems lighter and free. I don't feel so guilty for celebrating a win.

I turned left at the last set of lights and made my way south. I turned up the music and left it all in my rearview mirror. I wonder if Joseph wants company...

A Love, A Loss, And Peace XXIX

Patty, Erin and I sat on the living room floor at Erin's house and went through hundreds, maybe thousands, of pictures. Erin found picture's of his mother when she was young, pictures he had never seen before of his own family while growing up. Patty and I gave him all of the pictures he wanted including of our grandparents; we never new our grandparents and Erin did so we handed them over knowing they will always mean more to him than us. My father had his father's hand written will in a little pocket in a book, I gave that to Erin too, it will last longer and have a better shot of moving through generations if Erin keeps the keepsakes. I made a separate pile of pictures of dad in his first life, the one with Trina; I know she said to throw everything out and I imagine she would have if I wasn't there but I can't just toss it the trash. She doesn't know that the day I let my father go home for the last time he cried, he openly sobbed in the emergency room asking why she didn't like him anymore. It broke me, it made me angry, it confirmed all of my negative feelings about her...controlling, cold, miserable and down right mean. Listen, she is the one that has to live with how she handled everything around our father and maybe she is completely fine with it, I don't know. Here's what I know, when he asked for assistance to stay in his home after a stroke a few years ago, she got upset. She wanted him to go into a home because she was tired of driving the few miles to take him grocery shopping or to an appointment or to get his haircut. She wanted to wash her hands clean of him without feeling any guilt and that is only possible if the doctors agree that he needs 24 hour care...but then dad did what he does best and he walked back from the cliff and became strong. There was a doctor on my father's medical team that refused to believe that my father, at 61 years old, had to live out the rest of his life in a nursing home. He took him on as a patient and rehabbed him until my father who was curled into a little ball from arthritis could walk out on his own.

After all the work was done it was decided that my father could go home and enough supports could be put into place to help him stay in his home. Trina, who had been working with social services behind the scenes watched her months of work swirl around the toilet bowl when the medical team overruled her. After that day of getting a complete verbal undressing from doctors, Trina and social services slinked out the door...my father barely saw her again. When my father was finally at home he called her and asked for a ride, she refused saying she would no longer be helping him. It didn't stop there though, a few years later my father had to go back into the hospital and when Erin called to notify her she simply said...don't call me about this. That was it, he didn't do what she wanted, something he no longer qualified for, a nursing home, and she left...no discussion, just walked away.

Now, standing in Erin's living room holding a shoe box of her childhood I found it difficult to stay angry, what's the point? In the end I got to hold my father and say good bye when he refused dialysis, she will never have that but she should have these pictures...maybe a trip down memory lane will help her remember all of the goodness and let go of the bad...