The family member recovering from heart surgery has made huge progress, though he is now dealing with the complications of a blood clot.
I’ve been sad for him and fretful because I am too far away to be of any practical assistance.
This morning somewhere before dawn my internal alarm bells started up a mighty clanging and I was worried that there might have been a change for the worse, so I hustled to check email, only to find that a different faraway family member is in the hospital with chest pain.
Marisa’s Holiday Motel album, and the pain intensifies to a nearly intolerable level. The songs evoke recognizable landscapes – Portland, Swan Island, crowded bars and romantic drama, the stages we’ve shared, the long empty roads of the west, an ICU waiting room where we sat together waiting to hear if Stevie would survive.
Marisa is one of the rare people I can turn to for comfort, but with an ocean and two continents separating us I’m left listening to a recording of her voice singing I won’t follow any road signs, won’t look at any maps.
It is impossible to go back, or forward; life has to be lived in the present. The medical misadventures of my stateside relatives, my own experiences here with the NHS, and the worldwide banking crisis underscore the reasons why I moved away.
The principle that time heals all pain is valid, and I have recovered from every messy wound regardless of circumstance. The good things – the ability to take risks, wander, love, leave – have proved much more difficult.
I miss my friends and family more as the years pass – a hopeless, dreadful heartache that never mends.