August 1, 2004 - Bob
Milwaukee, WI
Happy August. My stomach’s troubling me a bit this morning. Too much spicy food -- I know better but I do so much enjoy it.
Fun Sign on the way to Milwaukee: “The Mars Cheese Castle” on the 94.
I feel sick, frankly. Heart sick and soul sick. I’m thinking about Bella and hoping she’s well. In the meantime, I’m just not feeling well. I’m worried about money. We’ve come this far and -- I have to believe we’re going to make it. I don’t let dad in on this because I don’t want him to worry. This trip is a gift to him and I want to keep it as such.
It is what it is. I have choices to make and I’m making them. Life continues to turn in the fashion that it does -- back upon itself. Work and be -- know that where you are is a natural extension of the choices made. The choices made...the choices made...
On the road to Milwaukee
As we’re driving to Milwaukee, my dad got hungry. We didn’t have time to pull over, so I offered to spoon feed him some fruit as he was driving. As I was doing so, it sparked a memory for him:
DC:
I was in the hospital when mom was dying --
RC:
Your mom - Grandma.
DC:
Right. The last thing she said to me before she died, as I was feeding her applesauce. “Imagine this. I started off feeding you and here you are feeding me.” That was the last thing she said.
RC:
And how did that make you feel?
DC:
It made me feel like she was going to be dying pretty soon. She was in and out of a coma. All her vital signs were failing. It was nice to have the recognition from her. It hadn’t been there for a couple of days before that. So that’s what I saw in her eyes was the recognition. And that was nice.
I thought about that for a moment and felt a bit uncomfortable with the parallel, me feeding my dad.
RC:
But as you said when we were getting interviewed at the Jake, you’re not planning on dying any time soon.
DC:
No.
RC:
That’s good. Especially since you’re driving right now.
DC:
I’m not planning on doing a Thelma and Louise.
RC:
And to clarify, when I talk about our sense of urgency for this trip, I’m not planning on you going along any time soon, either. But I think there is just a large X-Factor that has entered the equation and that is the Parkinson’s. The ability to do this trip with maximum enjoyment has you as mobile as possible so we can do this as freely as possible. At this point, you’re getting around just fine. Maybe a little bit slower but nothing that has impeded our trip. And that’s all I mean by taking this trip while we have the opportunity to. To do this on the level we want to. It’s like the story I like to tell about the people I met on the cruise ship when I was working there as 24 year old. They’d be in their 60’s or later and, yes, they got to be there, but they weren’t able to enjoy it the way they would have at 24. Age seems kind of like an earthquake magnitude. Every tenth of a number isn’t just one degree stronger, it’s something like 30 times the magnitude with each increment -- seems the same with each year in a life, especially later in life.
DC:
That’s a fact.
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