Holiday Drama
Andrew and I arrived in Montreal yesterday without any incident – all of our luggage even arrived (which, if you know me, is a bit of a triumph). Despite Andrew’s mom’s worries, I was able to drive to Hemmingford with no trouble, though the directions we got from Yahoo were a bit odd (Andrew didn’t recognize bits of the ride, which we later discovered was because we took a totally different way from his parents). We spent a quiet evening with his parents.
After sleeping in this morning, we headed off to a mall on the South Shore, where Andrew bought me another Christmas present – dolphin slippers. The main point of our trip was to get Andrew a new pair of boots, and we were successful on that point. The mall was busy, but we were able to navigate it without too much trouble.
When we returned to his parent’s house, I had expected a message from my parents – they were going to call sometime Christmas Eve. But there was no message. Andrew and his mom got busy making Christmas Eve dinner, and I settled in the living room to work on Sudoku.
Finally, after dinner, a call came from my mom. Dad was in the hospital. He’d had a heart attack yesterday. He’s doing fine now – they put in two more stents and he needs to stay home from work for a week or two. But, they’re probably going to send him home tomorow morning. The whole family – my brothers and their families, mom, and grandma – all went to the hospital this morning with all of the Christmas gifts and celebrated in Dad’s hospital room. Then they all had dinner in the hospital cafeteria (except Dad, who had his Christmas Eve dinner in his room alone).
As if that wasn’t enough, Mom passed the phone on to my brother, Kevin. He was staying at my parents’ house for a little while because he found out yesterday that his live-in girlfriend had been cheating on him. She had profiles up on Match.com and SingleMoms.com. Yup. She and her two kids had been living at Kevin’s house for about a year (I can’t remember exactly how long), and she had singles profiles up. Lovely. So, Kevin left the house, and told her to move out.
After talking with everyone else at Mom’s house, I spent a quiet evening with Andrew’s parents tonight. I’ve been fighting back tears – there’s nothing like a family emergency to remind us how fragile life can be. I have a feeling I’ll have a good cry in bed tonight. I wish I were home to be with the family.