Leaving the Past

After three days of feasting and celebrating my oldest daughter's graduation from McGill University, Maya and I flew to Edmonton to visit with my parents. The days were glorious, with the sun shining brightly all day and not quite disappearing until midnight. Maya and I had an opportunity for a daily walk along the river valley, exploring trails that are more familiar to us in the wintertime (we are regular Christmas visitors) and entirely unrecognizable in a different season. 

Whenever I see my parents, I am reminded that it may be the last time I see them, and I did not need the recurrent reminders from my father to be acutely aware of that. Moving to Ecuador means being that much farther away, and far less accessible. My father is frail and unsteady on his feet. When I hug him he shrinks even more than is evident when looking at him. His shoulders are hunched and he holds me in an uncharacteristically desperate way.

My mother has lost her short term memory and repeats herself over and over again. Maya is twelve, and until now, has only known how much she is loved and adored by her grandparents. During this visit, she was clearly distressed and pained, aware for the first time of the ravages of age, and frightened too. My mother has no insight into her illness or her deficits, and is easily irritated and angry, and that is frightening too. 

My father delights in Maya's violin practicing. He goes through her pieces note by note and marvels at her progress. He tells us stories of his adolescence in Yugoslavia, of attending university, and training in the cavalry, and trying to finish university and being drafted into the army and finding himself in his civilian clothes on the Russian front. My mother tells us about being a child in Naples and moving to northern Italy and having to repeat fifth grade because she did not speak a word of German. 

Our visit is too short, and we leave early this morning. I am feeling guilty and at the edge of tears. I am overwhelmed with losses; of my parents, of our lives in Baltimore, of all that is familiar, of Maya's childhood, of Tara, who has moved to England to live with her boyfriend and start her adult life. I want to be excited about the new chapter in our lives, our move to Ecuador and New York City, but for now I am apprehensive and sad.