What Does The Universe Want Me To Do?

We had been delayed four times in our quest to board the Odyssey for our 3-1/2-year voyage of a lifetime. First, we had delayed our flight to Belfast. Second, we had road-tripped around Northern Ireland. Third, we had visited Tenerife, Canary Islands. Fourth, we had returned to Minnesota and South Dakota. The fifth message from the owners of the ship, Odyssey, was to take care of ourselves for three weeks.

When I got the news, my stomach dropped. I felt physically ill. I wanted to cry and was doing it on the inside. With all the “buck up, buttercup” I could muster, I called our friends, Sandy and Gary, in Florida to ask if we could couch surf there for a bit, as my younger brother, Eric, with his wife and youngest daughter, was staying at our house and really didn’t need us there as they were  settling in. Fortunately, Gary and Sandy said they would be happy to host us, so we flew from Minneapolis to Tampa.

They picked us up at the airport and took us to our house to pick up one of the cars to use while we were there. My sister-in-law met us at the door, and we spoke a bit before Eric came in bleary-eyed from a midday nap to greet us as well.

When I asked how he was doing, he said he was not doing well. The doctors were not responding to requests for changes in his medications and would not see him very soon to discuss them. At my suggestion, he called them right then, on Thursday afternoon, and was told the soonest he could be seen was in over one month. He accepted the appointment, and then we talked.

His wife was concerned; he was concerned, I was concerned. It seemed the only ones not concerned were his doctors in Florida who had been treating him for two months. In that time, he had lost weight, lost energy, and was losing hope. Since we had a nephew, Robert, in Texas who was a nurse practitioner, we called him to see if treatment could be fast-tracked if we got him there by Monday. The answer was quick and certain: Yes. If he could not do it, he had friends in the field who could.

I think that I had figured out why I was here and what I was supposed to do. I would get tickets from Florida to Texas, arrange to stay with our older brother, Kent, in San Antonio for a week, and then say a few prayers.

By Sunday around noon, my bag was already packed from my many delays to date, and my brother, Eric, had packed a small carry-on bag that my sister-in-law from Texas had given us twenty years ago, as well as a small backpack. We arrived early to help out with a few things at our house where he was staying and to have a big lunch before going to the airport. Dusty and I had agreed that it would just be the brothers going to Texas to keep the focus on getting him the help he needed.

We found a couple of big pieces of lasagna and offered some to my brother as well. He said it was too heavy to eat and would have something light instead. With his head hanging down, he slouched in the chair, napping again as we prepared our lunch. His cheekbones jutting out and sunken eyes attested to his diminished condition. At 6’3”, he was the same height as me. If he weighed 150 pounds, I would be surprised. The last time I weighed that little, I was just starting high school.

It didn’t take us long to help out with the few items on the list at the house, mostly paperwork to help my sister-in-law get her Japanese license and transcripts transferred to the United States. With food in our tummies and a break in the Florida rain, we left a bit early for the airport. I put the bags in the trunk, and with Eric slumped into the back seat, we were off.

As we rounded the onramp to I-75, the rain-slick road loosened its grip on the back tires of the 2006 Mercury Grand Marquis, and we started to slide sideways in the direction of traffic on the freeway. Instincts kicked in, and I did the right things without thinking, and soon we were in the proper orientation for our direction of travel. My heart rate was definitely up, and my hopes for an uneventful mission were dashed. A glance in the rearview mirror let me know that my brother was resting his eyes in the backseat through the excitement. I would have to pay attention and do what needed to be done. Divine guidance may tell you where to go, but you still need to drive.

At the airport, I gave Dusty a long hug goodbye that didn’t last long enough. She gave me warnings about being careful and such, and we were on our way. The escalator in the airport was not functioning, and the stairs were not an option for Eric. Using the elevator and making our way through TSA, we finally reaching the gate a couple of hours before departure.

After we had been sitting for about half an hour, he raised his head and stood up for a couple of minutes. He steadied himself against a beam in his weakened condition, and I took a long look at him. The thoughts of WWII POWs ran through my mind, and it made me worry about how far gone he was and how long a journey back it would be, if we were successful.

Getting on the plane was not the end of our trip to San Antonio. We flew into Austin and caught the 15-minute shuttle from the South Terminal to the main terminal. After Walking the 1/4 mile to the car rental counter, the attendant told us that Allegiant Airlines had been banished to the South Terminal due to bad behavior. Not sure what that was, but it did make our trip a little longer. We found the rental car and made our way the 1-1/2 hours to San Antonio in the dark of a Texas night. (Why fly into Austin? Cheap nonstop flight. Needed a rental car anyway). My older brother, Kent, had told me that the usual way into San Antonio would be closed and he recommended another route. The GPS was telling me to go differently, but I tried to follow his instructions. That was working until all traffic in front of me on Interstate 35 was a sea of red lights for miles in front of us and my last chance to avoid it was my GPS telling me “Take the Exit. Take the Exit”. I took the exit and let that little voice in my ears (my GPS) guide me toward Kent’s house.

Most of the way, my brother's eyes were closed and mouth half open as he dozed while we drove. I knew the code for the entrance at the gated community, but it was already near midnight when we arrived. The two dim lights at the wide entrance and exit gates didn't illuminate any keypad awaiting my secret code input. I pulled to the side and prepared to call their house when headlights came up behind me and their magic button trumped my secret code. "Open Sesame!" I had my opportunity to follow their wake through the gate, narrowly missing the gate as it tried to take a bite out of our rented black Nissan Altima.

The new subdivision had lovely new brown brick homes with lovely new cars in the driveways. Kent had told me that his house would be lit up in red, white, and blue in honor of the upcoming Independence Day holiday. As I turned the corner, I saw the red, white, and blue house and pulled into the driveway. I got out of the car and double-checked the address. Wrong number, right street. Two doors away, another house with the installed perimeter lighting set to the patriotic color palette turned out to be the right place.

Kent and Linda had stayed up late (early to bed, early to rise, proof of concept) and greeted us at the correct front door. The long day of travel and challenging medication effects had my brother, Eric, ready for bed soon after we arrived. As he slept, Kent; his wife, Linda; and I spoke, about the purpose of our visit and our high hopes for a positive outcome. They had already seen the effects of both illness and medication on our brother over the past few months. Illness, with two episodes of hospitalization, had preceded his arrival at my home in Florida. What we hoped for was not just to keep him out of the hospital, but to get his life back to functional normalcy. Before calling it a night, Linda showed me how to operate her Nespresso machine and where the eight boxes of caffeine-boosted cartridges of wake-up juice were stored. Over the next week, we made a serious dent in her stash.

I woke up early and finally came out of the ever so comfortable guest room where I had spent the night, roused by the distinct smell of bacon wafting throughout the house . Kent was up making pork bacon as well as boar bacon with eggs for breakfast. He was an early riser and had a knack for creating food from scratch. Boar bacon was just one example.

After we shared a low-carb, high-protein Texas breakfast and my second Nespresso for the morning, he showed me the backyard.

A deck with a gas flattop and smoker was a testament to his love of outdoor cooking. A stairway ran down the steeply sloped hillside toward a large sitting area of stone pavers and an outdoor fireplace in one corner. Winding up the side of the house was a red gravel pathway reminiscent of a national park trail with xeriscaped flowers, bushes, and trees that brought both beauty and wildlife to the space. On this side of the six-foot-high wooden fence, you would see birds and butterflies. On the other side, you would see all that and the occasional deer grazing along the nearby tree line. I couldn’t help but think the whole design was very similar in spirit to our childhood home in Glendora, California. Our house on a hill with wild chaparral just beyond our fence.

Kent's pride in his design for the home he had built after retirement was tempered by the frustration of getting things done the way he had planned them. He noted that he stone facing on the outdoor fireplace was poorly done and already falling off in places. In addition, the large accent stones he had selected for sitting along his winding path had disappeared from the site during construction. Finally, his warnings about rain runoff needing attention had gone unheeded and now required redoing grading and drainage, things that would have been easier to do right the first time.

We agreed that these were first-world problems, and he was lucky to have them instead of the challenges facing our Eric.

When we got back inside, he had finally gotten up and found the bacons on the table. I offered coffee, which he gladly accepted. After a couple of adjustments to the milk and sugar levels, life was improving a bit.

The three of us moved from the open concept dining area to the open concept living area. With Kent and me on the large sectional, our younger brother sank into a large overstuffed chair with his back to the wall of windows overlooking the back deck and yard. As Kent and I talked about his plans for fishing trips, I saw Eric’s eyes slowly close and his mouth hang open. I knew it was the medications and not the conversation. It was why we were in Texas in the first place.

It wasn't too long before we heard from our nephew to schedule a consultation with a specialist he knew who had a private practice. A private practice was a godsend, as getting into a large group corporate setting could take weeks. We had an appointment for 3:30 the next afternoon. Great. All we needed to do was fill out the intake forms and provide the medical history that any healthcare provider needs. I spent the next couple of hours, with the help of my sister-in-law, Linda, inputting data and asking questions for the history.

While we were doing the intake forms, Kent was working on dinner. He was putting together the dough that would make the pizzas that he would cook on his outdoor gas flattop on the deck. Like all his other cooking, there were details that mattered. From the temperature of the oven to the peel for putting it in and out. He had a system, a space, and a rhythm for the orchestral production of pizza in his house. Best to just stay out of the way on this one. I could relate. Frequently, my kitchen routine requires others getting out of the way.

One by one, the pizzas were made, cooked, and delivered to the table. The time to make each was the time to bake each, so before the first was cold, the third was in front of us, with Kent finally grabbing a glass of wine to join his wife and brothers at the table.

After we ate, our nephew Robert came by to visit us and his father, Kent. In spite of being aware of his uncle’s situation, he was shocked when he saw Eric in person. He quickly made recommendations as a nurse practitioner specializing in Eric’s condition. He said the first thing was to put on some weight by having Ensure shakes a few times a day and discontinuing one of his medications immediately. My brother was happy to drink the shakes but wanted to wait until after the appointment the next day to make any changes in medications. On the way out of the house, Robert looked concerned and said that he would send an update to the specialist, Christina, with recommendations for the upcoming visit.

The next day, when the time came to go to the appointment, I performed my usual padding of the travel time because I really did not want to miss this visit. We drove the fifteen minutes to the 3:30 appointment and arrived at 3:00. When Eric got out of the car, he had to stop and steady himself by putting his hand on the hot black hood of the rental car. He had been getting lightheaded a lot lately. After the long shuffling walk of about 100 feet, we made it into the shared office of Christina and several other medical professionals.

Christina invited us in and asked if it was okay with my brother for me to attend as well as having a student observe. The answer was yes to both. The history and intake form saved us some time since we had submitted it online. She started asking questions and Eric was answering them. Standard questions about the onset and so forth. When the subject of lightheadedness came up, she took him out to get his blood pressure, and it was 92/58. He said his weight was 67 kilos, or about 148 pounds if you round it up. His answers to Christina’s questions were brief and matter-of-fact. No details and no context.

After staying silent for about ten minutes (which is not easy for me to do), I asked if I could fill in a few of the details. When I did, the trauma to both my brother and his family became the focus of my narrative. The need to avoid any future episodes like the one he had experienced was something that I felt needed to be underscored. I also felt that the details might include triggers for events, and future treatments could be built around addressing just that.

Christina made recommendations that were very similar to what Robert had suggested. She wanted to “peel the onion” of the medications to reveal my brother in his healthy state. The physical deterioration was both a cause and an effect of his current condition and needed a deeper dive that would require lab work. She worked briefly on her laptop to submit the orders and asked if we could get to one of the Quest labs in the area before 4:30. It was now 4:15 and the nearest was about 15 minutes away. My practice of allowing extra time was going to be put to bed for now. It was just a matter of getting Eric into the car and hoping I could work my way through San Antonio traffic in the middle of the day from someplace that I had just found to someplace I had never been. No problem. Shuffle to the car and crank up the air conditioning to try fruitlessly to counter the effects of a hot July Texas day on a black rental car.

Long story short. After facing traffic challenges and climbing three flights of stairs to take a four-floor elevator ride, we arrived on time and completed the labs.

Despite the labs being ordered as Stat, we would have to wait until the next day to get the results. I think that we were lucky that the only thing that needed to be treated based on the test results was a urinary tract infection.

Christina had ordered Eric to discontinue the use of the most offensive medication, as Robert had suggested. After not taking it that evening or the next morning, he seemed a bit more alert, a bit less “drugged”. In the morning, he got up not long after Kent and I did. Kent had made his grandkids' favorite breakfast: crepes. They were laid out in a staircase pile on a plate with homemade jams in front of them. Eric joined us and had some high-test coffee and a couple of Kent’s crepes. It seemed his appetite had improved a bit as well.

Later in the day, Robert had invited us to come over for a swim in the pool at his house about a quarter mile away. The heat of the midday Texas sun made driving the relatively short distance a necessity. I grabbed my hat and loaned it to my brother since his medication said he should stay out of the sun.

My brother and I bobbed around the pool and talked a bit while Kent spent most of the time watching from a chair at poolside. We went about collecting clear plastic cups from the bottom of the pool that Robert’s kids had dropped and lost there on an earlier swim. When the automatic pool cleaner started to wrap around my brother’s legs, Kent gave me a quick warning to keep him from going under. Eric later named the long-armed pool cleaner Ursula after the Disney octopus character.

The swim went well, and energy seemed to be returning to Eric bit by bit. I noticed that his normally creative conversation was starting to reemerge as well.

After leaving and changing clothes at Kent's house, we came back over to have dinner with Robert and one of his sons. Linda drove over with Eric, while Kent and I walked. The temperature was dropping as the sun did the same, and I really wanted to get a little exercise.

The spaghetti dinner was nice, and the wine was appreciated. After we ate, Robert got out his guitar and played and sang.

Eric has a deep love of music, and he was making his share of music references as we chatted between songs. Everyone noticed the change that had come over him in a day and a half, and I needed to get a shot of him and Robert to share with his wife back in Florida.

Eric said he was feeling good enough to join me and Kent on the walk back to Kent’s house. On the way out the door, I noticed the same bird droppings I had seen twice before on this trip. Above it was a mud nest with three baby swallows in it. Was the universe trying to tell me something? I would have to look that one up later.

Walking back from dinner, I noticed that the shuffling gait that had afflicted my brother for weeks was abating. We made the walk at a reasonable pace, and he didn’t get too tired. I had reason to be hopeful.

Sitting on the sofa later, chatting with my sister-in-law, I looked up the symbolism of swallows. The first thing I found was this… https://www.auntyflo.com/magic/swallow#google_vignette

The first words are: "Did you know that if you see a swallow three times, it indicates a spiritual connection with your guides?"

I had been feeling that I was being guided to see my family and help my brother. My mother was undoubtedly one of my guides to see her sister and help her youngest son. Another felt to be Betty, our senior citizen travel companion of several journeys. If there had to be a third, it was likely my father, the pragmatic physician. The close connection with sailors later in the piece seemed to guarantee our sea voyage would go ahead once our business was completed.

I felt that my delays and apparent wandering were not random. I almost cried at the intensity of the connections to my family, my faith, and my future all coming together in one moment.

The next day was the Fourth of July, and we ate well. I combined my reverse-sear ribeye technique with Kent’s skill with his smoker to get one of the best pieces of beef I’ve ever eaten. After dinner, we sat on the back deck watching the deer go by just on the other side of the fence until the fireworks started.

With the point of the story being made, I just want to pay proper tribute to the acorn cookies my brother made from scratch. "Scratch" being gathering the acorns and preparing them into the flour to make the cookies. And to the street tacos that Eric insisted we needed to get from a taco truck while we were in Texas. And to the In-N-Out burger we stopped at on the way back to the airport for our return to Florida. And yes, Eric ate an entire burger, and it wasn’t too heavy for him to eat.

Eric wasn't done, and neither was I. But we were both on our way. He was on his way to being better, and I was on my way to see what the swallows had in store for me.