Instead of a walk, I knew my sister wanted to take a bike ride, and so we did. Just the two of us in the neighborhoods around our house. Another chance to talk and talk. The talk returns, throughout the weekend, to surviving our parents and the issues caring for them raised in us, and how, now we see, they are at peace and so are we, mostly. To my sister I can share any lingering doubts: we did the right thing, here, there? Yes. We talk over, again, the stressful times, the momentous choices. How our sisterhood and seeing eye to eye and being able to count on each other’s wise counsel sustained us when my parents were in such rocky times with their elder life issues of memory loss and illnesses and moves and sadnesses and rages and joys. Yes, joys, my father, his time, unexpected, with Sylvia after losing my mother. Well, we talked it all over, all weekend. Last night, at dinner, the hilarity of all of us fondly recounting the mishaps and crazies and tender moments of caring for my father after Alzheimer’s. We have survived them. Did we want to be together, the five of us, under one roof this weekend? Yes. Without the distractions of our own children? Yes. I am a little homesick tonight. The extra rooms are empty now. Frank and I left to a quiet house, happily so. We swam in the Gulf this afternoon, under a misty sky and Frank took a walk up the beach with me too. I made a quiche, we watched A Star Is Born and some of the Oscars. This morning we all went out for breakfast and laughed more. We rode in the Mustang to Siesta Key in the hot hot sun and back before departure. We listened to all our favorite songs from the 60’s and 70’s. We loved each other and we will do it again. Tonight, I am missing my children too. I want to tell them all about our weekend. I am missing my parents. That too. That too. I want to say some kind of thank you I never said that they don’t even need me to say because they know now. Now we have made this weekend, and now they know.
