Respite Then, Respite Now

Two years ago

On September 19, 2014, Jim and I drive to Perrysburg, Ohio, south of Toledo, in one day: a twelve-hour drive. Jim’s cousin, Bryan, marries his fiancée in her parents’ backyard. It’s a lovely wedding, and a chance to catch up with Jim’s aunt and uncle and some cousins. The trip provides a welcome respite from the routine at home of carefully preparing food, bleaching dishes, and driving into Boston for clinic visits at least twice a week. David stays home: several friends are on call to help him if needed. I walk to the historic downtown from our motel; it's a charming riverfront town which once was a ship-building center and a busy port, before Great Lakes ships became too large to navigate the Maumee River.
On the way home we stop in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, where I was born and spent my childhood until age nine. Across the Susquehanna River is Sunbury, where my older brothers and I attended St. Michael’s school. Jim and I stay overnight in the Edison Hotel in Sunbury. Back in 1883, Thomas Edison oversaw the building of a power plant there, and on the Fourth of July, he threw the switch to light up the entrance of the City Hotel (now named for Edison), while residents cheered and a brass band played.
The Edison Hotel hasn’t been updated much since 1883. In my overactive imagination I conjure up fantastic midnight disaster scenarios, so I carefully check the lock on the door and hope the other guests and desk clerk are trustworthy. The mattress is saggy, but I’m glad to say I’ve stayed at the Edison Hotel, after those childhood years of driving by the facade.

Early fall 2016

Jim and I spend six days fulfilling my longtime dream of driving all of US Route 1. In January we drove south to Key West and slept on a sailboat in the harbor. This week we travel northward, from Boston to Fort Kent, Maine. (I’ll fill in more travel details later this week.) July, August, and September were intensely painful, anticipating and then living through the first anniversaries, especially of David’s death (August 12) and burial (September 12). Although we had planned the northern road trip months ago, before these emotionally trying months reared their heads, the timing is perfect. I take off my grieving mother mantel and thoroughly enjoy driving through New Hampshire and Maine, with two short jaunts into New Brunswick, Canada.