Family Visit (con't)

I do need to have my head examined because even though I fell asleep and didn’t hear my wife come to bed, I managed to get up for the 1:30 am and the 5:30 am check ins without the aid of an alarm. In the morning my wife informed me of her displeasure about me falling asleep last night. I had no defense and said I was sorry. This cannot undo any hurt I put on my wife and hopefully we talked through a few things. We were on better terms when we heard my daughter make her way to the bathroom where she promptly threw up. Maybe there is something in the water? It is always news when my daughter throws up because it rarely happens. I can count the number of times she has thrown up on one hand whereas my son throws up all the time. The interesting part (sorry about this as I go forward) was my daughter threw up the carrot she ate the night before. This is quite fascinating because my daughter ate a brownie after eating the carrot but the brownie never came up. The brain is very powerful. Unlike my son who bounces back very quickly, my daughter was couch bound for the day. She had trouble keeping anything down including water.

My wife and I kept a watchful eye on her and as the day went on she got better. However, she is so hard on herself and was lamenting the fact that she was sick. She didn’t want to be sick and wanted to spend this last full day with me. She is most certainly my daughter because when I was her age, I developed an ulcer from worrying. My daughter doesn’t have an ulcer – thankfully – but she puts so much pressure on herself. I’m not sure when (possibly only a few years ago) I stopped beating myself up over just about everything so I know how hard this can be. I did my best to reassure my daughter that everything will be okay. Hopefully, she believed me because I hate to see her this way.

With my daughter unwilling to go outside, my son tells me he is going to find the baseball I couldn’t find yesterday. We both went outside and within minutes, sure enough he found it! He is amazing when finding something. He said, “See, I told you I would find it.” We proceeded to play catch and then went to the small basketball hoop in the yard. We played a little game of one on one and my son beat me! He loves sports and it shows. We spent quality time together and unfortunately my daughter spent most of the day on the couch.

My wife made vegetarian chili for dinner which I tremendously enjoy. However, I seem to pay the price afterwards. This was the case tonight as my stomach is not used to the good food prepared by my wife. I seemed to suffer from the same thing my son and daughter had. My stomach was in knots all night.

It was time for my children to go to sleep. My daughter was reading her book and like the past 3 nights, I read to my son before he went to sleep. This has been our ritual since my daughter was born. These are the moments I took for granted but now I cherish. I certainly soaked in every moment over these past 3 days and it is so hard to believe this is our last night together. I had an incredible time in spite of the stomach ailments. The family visiting area is only 50 yards away from the camp but these past 3 days felt like I was 5000 miles away from my current status. I was no longer “XYZ”, I was husband and Dad. I cherish these roles and I am so happy to have been given this time with my family.

Tonight I didn’t fall asleep and did wait for my wife. It was our last night together for at least the next 7 plus months and we did make the most of it. I didn’t sleep much mostly due to my stomach, but I kept hoping the digital clock would stop, but it didn’t and time marched on.