Descents

My last day in Fort Kent was good. Only spent about an hour that day, taking pics of my mother's mother's birth and baptism records. I'd stayed at a horrible B&B the night before, in Edmonston. I barely slept, maybe 2 hours. So, I was up very early, and finished everything I needed to do in Fort Kent.

The descent downward from Fort Kent to my home town, Biddeford, was very nice. About 6 hours. Lots of fields, and small towns. I finished listening to 'The Corrections,' on Cd...and am properly amazed by the book. So insightful, and wise, and moving. I loved it.

I got home to my parents' and showed them both pictures of their parents' hometowns. They were really impressed. My mother and I went to dinner at our favorite seafood restaurant.

That night, following a funny and unexpected episode with a bat in the house, my mother, who has a faulty heart, went into atrial fibrillation, which we didn't know until she was in outpatient. she knew something was wrong, and so i drove her, and long story short, she had an IV in her jugular vein, was on oxygen, and had had 3 ekgs within an hour. ('Are you okay seeing me like this, Jane?' was the first thing she said to me when I saw her.) i was up all night with her in the er. i think this was the least amount of sleep i'd ever gotten in my life - 2 hours in 2 days. she was admitted into the hospital, and given, the next day - today- a medicine that 'converted' her heart, finally back to normal rhythym. She's home again.

I cried for 2 days straight, when she was in the hospital. It crushed me to think of her not in control of her situation, panicking, uncomfortable, scared. It crushed me to come home to her house and spend the night here among her things, the things she likes to arrange and rearrange, and simply exists among, and for her not to be here. It crushed me to think of a life without her, and to know that was inevitable. I want her to always be safe, and comfortable, and in control. I love her so much, and want her to feel happy and safe.

Haven't, therefore, had much time to process my trip yet. I still have to drive back to Michigan, which will be the conclusion of it. Tomorrow, actually, I will go to city hall here in Biddeford, and look up my grandfather's birth certificate, and on Friday, I'll interview my last remaining great aunt.

in the er, when my mother's heart rate and blood pressure were dangerously high, when she was shaking from the medicine, when she had an IV in her jugular vein, she told me she was proud of me for taking this trip, alone.

Life is comprised of shifts, moves, changes. This can be difficult.

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