Dunkirk NY – Monday August 19 marked the end of a stretch of time where my time was not my own. On Feb. 8th of this year, my wife and I set out for a vacation in Arizona. This was to be our second time trying to find out if snowbirding would become a thing for us, and spend some time looking at options. February is not the ideal time to drive, but we figured if we timed it right, we could get south fairly quickly and escape any harsh winter driving. We wanted to have our car available for side trips from my brother’s vacation house in Ft. Mohave, AZ, which we intended to make our base. Apart from a somewhat stressful stretch through Kentucky/Missouri, where we encountered rain, sleet, ice, snow, and clear skies, we did OK. The weather was mild, mostly in the mid- to upper fifties, and I had a nice day celebrating my birthday in Albuquerque NM. Our final day’s drive was through snow and rain, past Flagstaff and then on down to Ft. Mohave.
The day after we got there, we got a telephone call from our daughter’s partner to tell us that she had been in a car accident and was in a hospital with a lacerated right hand and a broken left leg. The driver that hit her ran a stop sign as she was traveling at about 60 MPH down a state road. Both injuries required some surgical repair; re-attaching tendons in the hand, and putting in plates and rods into the leg. We waited until we had word that the surgery was completed, and then took off for Olympia WA. It 2.5 days to get to the hospital, driving almost the entire length of Interstate 5.
The following 4 months from late February to late June were spent living with our daughter in a two-bedroom apartment in Lacey WA. We spent 11 days in a motel as we looked for a place to live with her. We could not bring her back to her own apartment because it is on the second floor of a house, with an outdoor staircase that she could not maneuver, as she was basically confined to a wheelchair in the beginning, unable to put weight on her left leg. One of her partner’s cousins had an apartment coming open that was actually designed to be handicap-accessible, so we moved in there. Her partner stayed at their place in Yelm as he had to work. We were basically live-in aides, doing all the cooking, cleaning and transporting as she began her recovery. She is fine now, about 90% recovered, still walking with a cane in public, but back at work and her own place. The car, a Suburu Forester, was totaled. We are very lucky, blessed, and fortunate to have her still with us.
We were able to leave on June 23, racing across the country in 5 days. I started rehearsal for Love’s Labour’s Lost at Shakespeare in Delaware Park on July 1, three days after I got back. To stay out in WA I had to drop out of a show I had booked at the Jewish Repertory Theatre for April-May. LLL closed on August 18.
Obviously I did not do much writing during all this time. I hope to get some more writing done now that things have settled down for now. I have some plans for a few small projects, and I begin rehearsals for Buffalo Opera Unlimited’s production of La Cenerentola beginning Sept. 8. It does seem to me that in the past 13 months, events have dictated my approach more than any choices I have proactively made. I’ve been reacting to circumstances more than I have been pursuing any personal goals or plans. It’s made me realize how much of life can be simply out of your control, and how tenuous living can be. It’s also possible that the universe is telling me that snowbirding is not in my future. -twl