Sep 29 - a too-quiet trip

Two people can sit side by side for almost 12 hours and hardly say anything. We did it a week ago, in a panic, and we did it yesterday, lost in our thoughts.

I'm not sure if it was the right thing to come back home. It's too quiet here. We have no Emma or Chase to distract us, keep us anchored in the day-to-day.

Response from friends and family has been overwhelming. You find out many things that you didn't know before, as people commiserate, trying to identify with your grief. Sandy found out that Susie Pierce has contracted a rare condition where her body cannot regulate its temperature. She has no way of cooling and it's constantly life-threatening. I found out that a biking friend, Alain Abbate, lost his young daughter to an accident years ago. I already knew that he had lost his spouse to another accident. I cannot imagine the two-punch -- even separated by time.

People talk about their individual troubles in a time like this and sometimes they are on the money, like Alain, sometimes not, like a friend of Sara's who tried to relate it to the loss of her Dad. We heard more details about Doris's son John. Each individual circumstance is different, of course, all very personal, all depending on the person's dependence on that relationship, their involvement in the death in terms of feelings of guilt, and the ongoing situation that brings them back to reality.

As parents, it's very hard to see your children go through this. You'd like to be able to provide comfort. Sometimes that's by helping with minor things, being strong; sometimes that's crying with them. You have your own sense of loss, which cannot even compare to theirs and you have the pain of seeing your own children grief stricken, and not really being able to do anything about it. There's no "kiss it better" anymore.

As I said at the service, we're lucky that we don't often have to go through the loss of young children in our society. In other parts of the world, even today, and certainly before all the miracle drugs and safety rules, children dying before the age of one was commonplace. Couples had more babies and they lost many. It's small comfort, however, at a time like this.

I will hear the pain in Jeffrey's voice echoing through my head for the rest of my life -- two calls -- one to say "Alexander stopped breathing" and the other "he's gone".

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We left the hotel yesterday at 7am, taking the 61 route north towards Hamburg and then I78 to I476 and north as usual from there. It was a great route, much less traffic, no construction, shorter run on secondary roads -- no negatives. The extra 9 miles is insignificant over the course of a normally 12 hour trip.

We stopped at the service center on I476 north of the tunnel and Sheryl pulled in after us. She'd left earlier and we must have passed her, obviously. We got gas after using the facilities and passed her again just before I476 dumps you onto I81.

It was an easy drive yesterday, certainly compared to the drive a week ago. A week ago we drove almost the entire 12 hours in the rain; yesterday we only encountered rain along I90 before Buffalo and on the 400 north of Toronto for a short time. In addition to that stop where we saw Sheryl, we stopped at the last service center before Buffalo, to gas up with cheaper American gas and again in Grimsby, to pick up a Subway. We got home at 6:20 p.m.

I had some of the chili for dinner; Sandy scrambled an egg for herself. It was dry when we got her but it rained overnight and is supposed to rain more today. The temperature is dropping -- tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, with a high -- yes a high -- in the 40's, and that's degrees F not C. I'm not sure when I'll get biking. I feel like a sloth, having sat around for the last week eating and drinking.

Today ... who knows. If it does clear long enough, I'll get back at that rock wall. The Doppler needs to clear long enough for me to mix concrete, however.

I had a hard time getting the PC going last night, a corrupted file. I need to do some more backing up. This is getting tiresome.

Onward ...