Well goodness. It has been a long time since I last wrote here; so much has happened and so very much has changed. As you will see, the original raison d'etre of "kittens" no longer exists. To blog or not to blog; we must decide that later.
My last entry was about our delayed vacation. There were pros and cons to our postponing it by two weeks though I would not recommend letting your passport expire and thereby shaving several years off your life to anyone. Since we moved overseas we haven't been coming home in the summer at all; we normally come back at Christmas because it seemed hard to make my poor mother-in-law face the holidays totally alone. But travelling at that time of year is a major hassle. There are gifts to bring - oh I can name any number of inconveniences. So this year, with Norris's blessing we decided to make our annual pilgrimage in the summer and save our Christmas trip for something fun, like skiing.
At this point we are still reflecting upon the echos of my selfishness. By coming home in August we were in a position to notice that Norris, already thin, had lost a noticable amount of weight. When pressed about it she admitted she couldn't eat a bite before the late afternoon. Of course we told her she needed to see a doctor but she angrily demanded to know what a doctor was going to do for her. And that was kind of the end of it.
Which didn't stop us from going to the doctor. Connie went a few doors down to have a physical with the same doctor who has been treating him and his family all his life. A couple of weeks after we returned back to Abu Dhabi, Norris went to pay Dr. Bolton for his visit and at that time she confessed that she wasn't eating, she was very tired and things weren't right.
He ran some tests and after that Connie got a call from him saying that Norris pretty much had cancer, and a lot of it. In her liver and maybe her lungs and probably she had six to nine months. We knew immediately that we had to move home. When we called Norris she said she would be fine and she was mad at Doctor Bolton for calling us and the last thing she wanted was for us to move there. (More about Norris's incessant worrying at another time).
More tests were done in Memphis. We started the process of detaching from our Abu Dhabi existence. Her prognosis kept shifting; it went from months to weeks. First we were going to move in November. Then she went into the hospital to have a stent put in her liver to help her enzyme count. We speeded up our plans. Then they found they couldn't operate. Should we just come now? Then her cancer doctor said he wasn't giving up just yet. The things they were doing for her couldn't help her much, they were just trying to slow things down and give her, and us, some time. "I hate to tell you", she said, "everyone is waiting for you to show up here like some white knight".
We sold our boat, our truck. A friend agreed to take over my sweet little Filipina maid. The cats had to get shots and carriers and documents. We had to sell everything that plugs into the wall because the power is 220 over there. We had movers in the house for a week because they had to squeeze us into their schedule. Robert had to be withdrawn from school and enrolled in a new one here.
And everyday Connie would talk to Norris. Sometimes she would sound pretty good. She wasn't alone; people visited her everyday. She had a big tumor on her bile duct. The plan was to bring her home with hospice care. "Are you going to make it til we get there?" I asked her. "I don't know" she said, 'I really don't". Every giant step we made, she would slide a few steps back. Connie's cousin Johnny told us, "Just get here as soon as you can".
So on October 18th at 11:55 pm we flew out of Abu Dhabi airport for probably the last time, with four cats and seven bags. On the 19th of October at around 6:00pm we showed up at Memphis International. By the time we made it through customs, rented a vehicle large enough to hold all of us and all our stuff and made the hour long drive to Covington it was 8:00 at night, too late and too tired to turn around and drive back to the hospital in Memphis.
Connie called the hospital and talked to his Mom for a little bit, just long enough to let her know we were here. She didn't sound good, and then she put the phone down. When he tried to call back, it was off the hook. And the next morning she was gone.
So jet lag and a funeral. And lots of questions. The answers so far:
Robert is in a good school here and likes it. We'd like him to go to one high school for all four years, so it looks like we're staying at least that long. There is also the matter of Mama Irene, Connie's 97 year old grandmother currently residing in a nursing home. She needs to be looked after so we need to be close-by for that. Honeywell has worked with Connie and he will have a new position and work from home. Norris's house will never fit all her stuff and ours too so we are buying ourselves a house and eventually selling hers. The cats are fine. We are okay. Everybody misses Norris and can't believe she just left us like that.
Now this would be no fun without any pictures so here are some of the things I will miss most about Abu Dhabi:
The fashion
the chickens
the signs
the souvenirs
the camels
my pretty white truck
the architecture
the bling (if you can, zoom in on the "Range Rover" logo)
So, au revoir, Abu Dhabi, bonjour, Covington. It's nice to be back, it's nice to be home. To all of you who have sent condolences, prayers and good wishes, thank you.
I'm pretty sure this is not the last of it.
love,
Jaimie
