waiting...

It's crazy quiet in here. 

My eye glass case snapping shut feels almost obscene. 

Occasionally my cell phone vibrates a silent message, I haven't told anyone that I was arriving early.

I wanted a moment to myself.  In the quiet.

I left the Lou early today. Quick breakfast with Hubs, needed to be sure he was feeling okay before I left.  It was a hard decision to leave him knowing he's hurting so badly.  But it was harder to stay away.

Dad's been in the hospital for a week.  They decided yesterday that they were going to operate. If Grumpy Gus doesn't decide they aren't.  The doc feels pretty okay about the procedure, but told us girls if it was his dad he'd be here before the surgery.

I grabbed a few snacks and drinks, Hubs gassed up my little car and I was ready to head south.

Luckily I had a conference call to make and loose ends to tie up as I drove the first hundred miles or so. I didn't have to be with myself. My thoughts didn't get to shout in my head and worry my heart.

I'm still not sure I want to be alone with myself. The last two hundred miles or so involved music and miles.  I tried to stay out of my thoughts and simply focus on forward.  An hour or so of sleet as I went through the Mark Twain Forest kept me focused for a bit.

Followed by watching ribbons of birds for miles on end.  If Hubs had been with my I probably would have spent time trying to video them.  The ribbons swirled and moved, hundreds of beautiful black birds moving like giant ribbons caught in the breeze.  By then I had cleared Corning and was moving up to Pocahontas.  The flooded rice fields on each side of the road, oddly empty of traffic.  Just a random car, truck or semi.

I still didn't want to be alone with my thoughts.

I still don't.

We've waited on these types of surgeries before.  We are old hats at it.  But as time goes by you feel more fear.  Age has a way of complicating things.  Will and determination to heal also play a role.

I don't know where he is mentally.  I know where I would be.  But I haven't been walking in his shoes.  Is his love of family and life enough? Or is he tired?

In a few minutes the silence will be shattered.  The rest of the family will arrive.  We will all want to spend a few of those precious 60 minutes with him, we're only allowed in two at a time.

I need a few minutes more of peace.