Today is August 6, 2004. It is almost 4 months since my parents left for New Jersey to witness the birth of grandchild number 4. Just in case my sister decides to read this let me clarify and say that they were not going to witness, they were heading out to celebrate the birth of number 4. The birth of a grandchild is always exciting and this was particularly auspicious as they knew that a couple of months later number 5 would join them out here in L.A.
As previously noted, people plan and G-d laughs. My father got pneumonia, had a heart attack, pulmonary complications and then ended up with a triple bypass, all of which has kept them trapped in New Jersey. For a long while it seemed like he wasn’t going to make it, but things have worked in our favor and it appears that a full recovery is quite likely.
However there have been a number of kinks in the plan and the return home is in doubt. Well, not in doubt, but the timeline is fuzzy. It would be a bit of an exaggeration to compare this to Columbus and his return to Spain, but what the heck, let’s do it. Just as Columbus knew that eventually he’d go see old King Fernie and Queen Izzy again my father knows that he’ll greet the dawn here in Sunny LA again, we are just not sure when.
In the interim I am still responsible for three 90 year-old grandparents and two households, not to mention an infant, a 3.5 year-old, wife, mortgage, the war in Iraq and the capture of OBL. Ok, that is an exaggeration too, perhaps I am more prone to hyperbole than I thought.
Baby is crying, time to run.
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