Before I Dig Myself A Hole…

Dearest Rachel –

And to think, I was going to send you a letter yesterday, griping about how the weather folk had thrown us all into a panic Monday night by claiming we were on the verge of getting hit by a Blizzard (yes, the capitalization is intentional – that’s the kind of storm they were talking about), only for us to wake up to an inch or so of slush. Mom had warned Dad that she might not be able to visit him yesterday, while Logan literally took the day off of work – and for what?

One of these days, I thought as I began putting words to pixels, it’s going to get to the point where we hoi polloi are going to ignore their cries of gloom and doom – and we’re going to pay dearly for it, because they would be right some time, after all these cries of ‘wolf’ in the past.

That moment got here sooner than I expected, though, and I suppose it’s a good thing I didn’t finish the letter before I proceeded to go about my day, as I could have rhetorically dug myself a real hole. I put in a few hours at the ‘office’ (much of it spent waiting for information that didn’t arrive, but also fielding a question or two over the phone as well), and headed out to join Mom at Dad’s bedside, where she’d been for an hour or two by the time I got there.

Normally, she’s there for most of the day – what paperwork there is to take care of at home (which Dad says he’s tried to teach her how to deal with) isn’t in what you’d call her wheelhouse, and you know the cycle that happens when you don’t like doing something that needs to get done, and it piles up and you don’t get any better at the task, and so forth… Plus, there’s the fact that the house is just… empty without him there, so it’s understandable that she spends so much time at Dad’s side. But by two o’clock, we were seeing great goosefeather flakes falling outside of his window, and she left with a flurry of apologies. Dad was actually bemused at her alarm upon seeing the snow, but acknowledged (with minimal prompting on my part) that she wasn’t usually the one driving of the two of them, and especially not in weather like this; she had every right to be concerned.

As for myself, I hung around long enough to see him through therapy – including standing by with the wheelchair, just in case, as he walked all the way to the exercise room – before checking out on my own. I will say that his determination to literally get back on his feet again is really impressive; if this is any indication, you’re not likely to see him any time soon, but with eternity to wait for him, I can’t see where this should bother you too much.

My trip back, with me having to deal with an extra hour’s worth of accumulation, wasn’t the worst trip I’ve taken through weather by any stretch of the imagination, but on the way back from the grocery store, it was enough that I could certainly understand Mom’s concern in dealing with it. Just because I’m (reasonably) accustomed to it (although everybody, even me, forgets what it’s like after a long enough span of time away from such situations), doesn’t mean it’s easy to slog through.

Nor was it fun clearing the driveway once I pulled into it; I really would have much preferred to have been able to take care of this first thing in the morning, not unlike a workout that I could just get out of the way and proceed with my day. But it’s not as if the weather alters itself to fit my schedule, nor should I expect it to; I’m not that special.

It was enough, however, to allow me to fall asleep early in my bedroom chair early enough to be able to wake up with plenty of time to spare before the gym opened the next morning.

So, we’re still not dealing with the piles of snow that I had to contend with in the first few days after your departure by any stretch. But it’s definitely starting to look a lot more like winter than it has up until now.

They say that by the end of the week, we’re also going to be getting winter temperatures, too, dropping into the single digits over the weekend. And while that’s to be expected of a Chicago winter at some point, after this underwhelming accumulation, I wonder if I should really be afraid of this prediction, or just blow it off as needlessly overhyped.

In either case, honey, I’d probably do well for you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.