Weather is a strange thing. It seems to be similar to an arrogant feisty child. Temper tantrums and tears flowing, cold shoulders, and blowing smoke up places only they know why. Weather must be child. A teenage child. I watched the hurricanes recently. Thankful for my inland home. Now the fires in Texas. I have traveled back east for a few vacations. I have not taken many vacations in my life, just the see the family ones yearly. I did the usual one as a child, the mandatory Disneyland, and an occasional camping trip, but not a see a new place and experience kind of vacation. I didn’t mind, every summer we went to Texas. My mother was born and raised there. My father loved it there. After I moved out of the house they finally ended up moving there. I visited a few times while they lived there. After about 12 years, they moved back. My mother preferred it here. She missed it here. Most of her children were here. My father had to finish his time at his job, and he was having a difficult time finding employment back here. She moved back a year before he did. He would visit as often as he could. But my mother was here alone for a while. We had never been very close, after she moved back, we became close. I am very glad for that for a lot of reasons. The usual ones of having your mother as your best friend and all that gooey stuff, but she became sick within a year and a half of returning and died shortly after that. The timing of her moving back was weird timing for me. I had left home when I was 17, had to return for a year when I divorced and was in school at 19. I left at twenty and had never been back. Now in my thirties I was in a bad spot. I had a preteen and was in a bad relationship. I had moved to Wyoming three years before. The relationship was good at first, he was an alcoholic. He had stopped drinking prior to my moving there. The last year he had started drinking again. A lot. He was a very nice person. He was a very mean drunk. He was controlling. Day by day the control was more. Invading my every move. I woke up one day and knew I was leaving. I packed the car, left and had no idea where I was going. I had two hours to leave. He was coming home for lunch. The control he had slowly strangling every move. He must have known I was at that point. I went to my mothers. I am not sure why. I was very much like my mother was. I do not get close to many people. I did not open up much to anyone. I left home and was on my own. No help, no assistance offered, no how are things going. How I paid the bills, took care of my daughter, planned for the future was up to me. I didn’t think she cared for me much. We hadn’t talked much over the years, the holidays, important events in family lives and updates. Where they were living and any moves or major changes. Nothing real personal. Showing up at her door was probably as big a shock to her as it was to me. I stayed three months. I continued going out to dinner, spending weekends and most days off that weren’t needed to study with her. We had a lot of good times, a lot of clearing up the wrong impressions we each had. She would try to become angry with me when ever we would talk about my work. I was just starting out in ICU. She was very proud when I graduated. Even more so when I was hired into ICU. She was attempting to be angry about my “calloused attitude”. I frequently told her she wouldn’t have to worry about a lot of the things we did to people to keep them alive as she was a “no code”. She would tell me that was so mean. How could I say that. She was a very proper and genteel woman. (Unless you made her mad then her true Texas accent would blaze out and she could put you in your place without uttering one curse word, you would be cowering and maybe piddle yourself a bit.) Then she became sick. She was very sick, very quickly. Only she didn’t tell any of us. I am not sure even my dad knew how sick she was. My last words with her were three months later. In the emergency room. My father and sister went to get a drink while we waited for test results. She reached out, grabbed my hand and said. “You do remember what you have always told me about me being a no code don’t you?” I said I did, she looked at me and said “please remember that”. She was then taken for another test. I left, my dad took her home. Several days later I received a call from my father. They were in the emergency room again. I was at work. It was 4 am, a coworker drove me, they would not let me drive. She was comatose. She never woke up, we disconnected her from life support and let her die several days later. I remembered.
Just like the weather, the winds blow here and there. Storms of life, and then the calm. I look at pictures of Texas. Sweltering heat, dry conditions. Fires. I love Texas. I have only lived there less than a year, but spent many summers there. I moved to Austin, Texas, 11 years ago with a plan. I moved back within a year when I was unable to sell my house here. My daughter missed me. She was happy to have me back. I am here. My life is here. My heart is here. And in Austin. There will always be a part of me in Texas. I am hoping the winds and storms of life will turn into rain. Lots of rain in Texas.