September 2006: Remembering Joy

It was a long drive home. Eight long, long hours, and that counts only the time spent actually driving, not the stops to walk in circles, trying to get circulation back into my butt and my brain. It was a drive that seemed to go on forever, and every mile, every hour took me farther away from my son.

Peter is dying. It has been the hardest thing in the world for me to learn to say that. First I could manage only, “Peter is ill.” Then . . . “He has a terminal illness.” Now . . . “My son, my only son, my brilliant, challenging, deeply loving son is dying.”

Peter is dying.

I said it all the way home.

I was returning from a visit to my daughter-in-law, Katy, and my three grandsons. Peter’s father had been visiting, too, from California, and we drove together to the nursing home to see Peter. Ron and I have been divorced for twenty years, but it seemed right that we should be together for this.