West of Hope

Happy Easter from Victoria. I made it, no thanks to the CBC and my own tendency to act before I think.  I was about to leave Vernon at 9 on Thursday morning when I heard on the radio that all the ferries to Victoria were full.  As it was March Break in BC and Easter approaching, I panicked and for the first time thought I should have made a reservation.  I called Jo in Calgary who said I could stay Thursday night in her condo in Vancouver or else with her sister Barb in North Van.  Then I tried and failed to make a reservation on line on the ferry for Friday.  My jumpy state combined with my general computer ineptitude to insure calamity.  I couldn’t even register a password, but I did discover on the website that there actually were spaces available on the 7,8 and 9 o’clock ferries on Thurs.  I phoned and made a reservation for 7pm, called Jo to thank her for her help and tell her the story, cursed CBC for spreading panic among susceptible seniors and finally pulled out of Vernon at 10:45am.  It was a glorious morning and the whole drive was blessedly uneventful.  Spring really sprang just west of Hope, all the trees had a haze of green and daffodils and forsythia were brilliantly yellow, even if only glimpsed at 110 km/hr through transport trucks.  I opened the windows and breezed into the ferry terminal just after 5, only to discover that mom had been right.  I had phoned her to say that I might be a day late because the ferries were full, and she had told me that they never reserved all the spaces.  Sure enough, the 6 o’clock ferry was only 55% full.  My $18.00 reservation for 7 was all for naught.  I got a ticket for the 6 o’clock.  The only good news was that as it was Thursday, I got the seniors’ rate. The sunset ferry ride was restful, and I arrived at mom and dad’s place around 8:30.  I had a drink of Scotch with water, which tasted terrific even though I usually only like single malt.  Dishwater probably would have been fine at that point.  Mom and I had a good talk and went to bed around 10:30.

I’ve been in the hospital for 2 days with dad and don’t know what to think.  Mom is unstoppably hopeful that he will get back to their apartment, but I can’t share her optimism.  It is miraculous that he survived the operation and still has not got pneumonia, but he is shakily frail, bruised from his wild behavior following the operation and his mind is wandering.  Sometimes he looks good and sounds lucid, but this morning when we arrived he was obsessed with the conviction that he had been involved a murder.  When we made the mistake of trying to get him off that track by talking about the fact that Ralph Kline had died yesterday and what a coincidence that was since we had been talking about him yesterday, he immediately wove that into his fantasy and said that that was exactly it; it was Ralph Kline’s murder that they accused him of.  It took quite a while to get him back, and he still wandered off a few times later.  I’m in Starbucks at the moment, after taking a walk.  I left mom and dad resting in dad’s room.

 I’m finishing this at home.  Dad seemed fine when I got back.  He ate all his dinner and with more relish than I have ever seen him eat.  He’s the man who always says, “ You eat to live, you don’t live to eat,” and he looked as if he was eating for his life this evening.  He was very shaky but kept shoving in huge mouthfuls.  Then mom and I left the room while he was hoisted back into bed.  When we returned after talking about how he seemed to be recovering, he was raving again about revenge plots.  When mom tried to calm him, he told her she was beautiful and he loved her, which surprised her because he never says such things.  We finally had to leave him, still troubled by revenge plots and telling us to be careful.  What an emotional roller coaster.  Mom and I had one of our rare but scary verbal battles last night and then in clearing out the fridge and pushing all the yellowing things that should have been green down the garberater, mom blew the system and we got a leak in the kitchen sink which was not so bad after we had removed the pressure of the pulverized vegetables.  Clearing up the mess together brought us back to basics and we carried on with dinner.  Tonight when we returned from the hospital around 7:30, we made a good chicken dinner and had some laughs.  I had another scotch and water.  I look forward to bed soon.  The family ties are getting tight.