I arrived at Pittsburgh at 11pm last night, after a three hour delay in Chicago due to massive thunderstorms. I’m disappointed I did not get to see these thunderstorms. Surprisingly, I wasn’t concerned at all about the delay – I made friends at the wine bar. Cause that’s what I do. But that put me on the road in a rental car, trying to find my niece’s house at midnight. Grr.
This morning my niece and I combined dad’s and mom’s ashes in a random container she found (cue Buck Owens’ “Together Again”) and filled four wooden heart urns, while laughing and sharing some gallows humor. We also parted the ashes out into three different leftover containers so I could spread a little in Nestorville, a little in Renick, where mom was born, and a little in La Plata, Maryland, one of her favorite places and where her sister lived.
I left for Elkins around 11:30am and found The Graceland Inn, where I’ll be staying tonight and tomorrow night. Yes, I know plenty of people in the area that I could have stayed with, but I figured this would be a good opportunity for some alone, sad time. And as soon as I got into my room, and shut the door, the tears started.
Being here hurts. I’ve never been here without mom and dad. Going to the Kroger hurts because that’s where we’d do her big weekly grocery shopping trip. Passing by Davis Medical Center hurts because that’s where her doctors were and where her radiation took place in 2019. I thought about going on down to Belington, where they lived before mom moved to Washington to be with me, to visit some folks, but just being in Elkins is hard enough. So I came back to my room, found a fan in the closet (THANK GAWD. It’s 80 degrees in this room and the windows don’t open and there is no air conditioning) and am chilling here, writing and cross stitching. My niece gave me a bottle of wine so I’ll have a nice dinner at the restaurant here, and then just settle in for a quite evening of self care. Maybe in the clawfoot tub if I can get the temperature in this room down a little bit.
I’ll try to get up and out early tomorrow. Maybe. If I feel like it.