Wednesday's Visitation

Because Jay's Wednesday's visitation is at 6 I have to cross the city during rush hour. This terrifies me. I don't mind stop/start stoplight traffic. But this particular traffic requires alot of merging as I dart across freeways. I hate it. So much in fact that I left my house early enough to completely avoid it. Which put me in the hospital's neighborhood around 4pm. Early, early.

There is a giant mall a couple stop lights down from Jay's hospital so Rush and I just hung out there for a bit. I was hoping that there would be a play area like there is in our hometown mall, but no such luck. Next week we will look for an outdoor park close by. If it's raining I know we can still hang out near the fountains in the mall. I'll just bring Rush's nintendo DS and I'll grab a magazine. Maybe we'll have a snack or something. Anything to avoid killing someone on the freeway.

Sunday was Mother's Day and I wrote that I was livid that Jay's parents didn't come to visitation. Jay was disappointed but not surprised. I felt that it was totally unacceptable seeing how the hospital is less than an hour away from their house. I called them on Monday not sure if I was going to be able to maintain any grace and poise. I didn't have to worry about it. Jay's dad immediately went into apologetic mode and said he'd be there on Wednesday. I politely told him that I was very protective of Jay's feelings and I wouldn't stand for him to get hurt therefore I wouldn't be telling him that they were coming. If they showed up, then it would be a nice surprise. But it wouldn't be a letdown if they flaked...errr....if something came up.

They DID show up. And they stayed the whole time. They even got there an hour early because they worried about the traffic too. I was so impressed. I know it seems obvious that parents should want to visit their son in the hospital. But this family is DIFFERENT to say the least. They are moving up my ladder of respect just for coming.

My other-mother did make the comment to Jay, "Sooo, what are we doing for Mother's Day?" He told her, "Mother's Day has passed." Uh, yeah it did, remember? You weren't there!!!! She wants us to take her to the movies. Ugh. I want to have a normal relationship with this woman but this just rubs me the wrong way. I guess we can tell her we are taking her to the movies and then just NOT SHOW UP!!!!

Clearly, I have some anger issues for this family. They have put Jay thru so much over his lifetime and even though he is eager to put it all behind him, I am not so forgiving. Still, every time we see them I tell myself we can start over and build from here. We have built from "here" so many times that "Here" could have it's own zipcode.

On a positive note, we find out today about how long Jay has left in the hospital. It could be as little as a week and a half. I'm trying not to think about it because of course, it could be longer.

Whatever happens, at least we do see each other twice a week. I get to touch his face and he always pulls my chair as close as possible to his. He keeps his arm around me the entire hour and a half and at least once "accidentally" brushes against my chest. It feels like high-school. Especially since we have visitation in a cafeteria. In fact, it might be kinda sweet to look at it like that. We are just flirting right now, seeing each other occasionally and when he gets out it will be like our first date. Hmmm, but will I put out on our first date?? After a deployment and almost immediate hospitalization (not to mention stopping the mood-killer Zoloft!) I doubt it's even up to me!