Sense Memory

Yesterday was exhausting, Grams was admitted to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica in the early hours of Sunday morning. I of course did not hear anything about it until 6:15 Sunday night, and it gets worse. The only time in 10 years my phone has not been in an audible distance, and I don't check it until 10:30pm, and I was stuck with nothing to possibly do till Monday morning. By that time...it was 1:30 am on the East Coast-I didn't want to wake my mother, and I wasn't about to call the Hospital at that time either. So I took care of everything, Monday morning am...and went to see my Grams. I guess yesterdays events took me to today's "truth"...

In the car this morning, on my 20 minute (lovely) commute to work...I turned on K-Earth 101.1....yes I like the oldies but they also have a traffic report unlike my go to Jack FM...while I was listening to the traffic report I was transported back to the days of my youth. See, while my Grams and almost the entire rest of my family lived here in Los Angeles, my immediate family lived in our states Capitol. SACRAMENTO...ugh. My parents sent me to LA during the summer months to spend time with Grams, every morning at the butt crack Grams would get me up, get me dressed and we would make the hour long commute from her condo in Encino to Mort's Palisades Deli, where she worked with her Brother, Mort (my great uncle), as the Deli's book keeper. Every morning grams would have N.P.R playing on the radio. This morning, as I am listening to the traffic report, the 405 and 118 both backed up. I got this sense, it felt like it did on those mornings back in the late 80's. Cool, crisp, sunny...but this time, the overwhelming sense that I was safe and taken care of, was gone. It was replaced with the knowledge that nothing ever stays the same- that you in fact do get to "return the favor", that now...it's my turn.