And So It Goes

Wednesday night my grandfather had to go to the emergency room. Complications had arisen from his recent round of ‘Medical Russian Roulette’ and he needed to have an emergency procedure performed. For the sake of modesty I will go no further into detail on that issue, but he is home again and is feeling much better.

The real downside to the situation is that my grandparents have finally reached an agreement that they are no longer able to stay in their home and will need to be moved into an assisted living facility where they can have quick access to help when it is needed. This means massive amounts of stress and upheaval for the entire family as this was an eventuality long discussed but alas, not planned for. With no preexisting arrangements there are huge and very difficult choices looming on the horizon. My mother and her sister are driving north to begin the process of relocating elderly relatives as I write this post. At some point I will be traveling that way myself to offer my assistance and support (cause that is what the favorite grandchild does at times like this…right?), and I’ll be sure to bring along my laptop so that I can blog from my hotel room.

However, not wanting this post to be a downer (or rather, more of a downer that it already is) I want to tell you about something that happened last night that is just…well…you’ll see. I want to tell you a story about a suitcase (just bear with me, okay?).

When I was about eleven years old I got a suitcase and matching duffel bag from my grandparents for Christmas. Up until that time my mother and I had always shared a suitcase when we made the yearly family trip to visit our relatives in the frozen north (and by frozen north I mean Pittsburgh) or my clothing was packed into a very small, old and battered suitcase that my mother had used in college. In my young and as yet un-jaded eyes a suitcase was a very ‘grown up’ thing to own…after all, only the adults in my world actually ‘owned’ things like that. My new luggage was a soft sided teal green rolling case with pink and black accents and black leather identification tags and the duffel had a two sided strap (one side pink, the other black). These two pieces of luggage were used and abused for the next seven years. They were over stuffed and wedged into the trunk of several cars, hauled in and out of hotel rooms and relative’s homes, kicked around the concrete floor of a half dozen cabins at the camp I went to as a teenager, and helped me move into the dorm my freshman year of college. Then they were put in the attic alongside my parent’s suitcases and all but forgotten about.

Last night my mother was packing to head to Pittsburgh in the middle of February…this means sweaters and sweat shirts and lots of layers. Her petite silver-blue hard sided suitcase just wasn’t going to hold everything she would need. So we climbed back up into the attic in search of another suitcase for her to use. She needed something larger but not heavy. Sitting in the corner was my trusty teal roller. We hauled it down the ladder and dusted it off. This morning it and its matching duffle, back in service after ten years, were wedged into the trunk of my mother’s car.

Its funny how many memories can be attached to an inanimate object isn’t it? Just seeing it sitting by the front door last night as I left my parent’s house brought back a weird wave of nostalgia for my own past, a subject I usually avoid if at all possible. Suddenly I could remember how clean the air smelled at camp in the early morning, how the sunrise looked from the small bedroom window in my grandparent’s house, and just how tiny that dorm room really was. Somehow I feel better about things just knowing that my mom is using my trusty old suitcase…and somehow it feels right that it should be with her as she goes to take care of the very people who purchased it for me all those years ago.