In early December of my senior year, my mom got her second hip replaced. After school I drove ten minutes to the Hood River Hospital to visit her. She was almost recovered from the anesthetic by then, but she didn't say much to me other than, "You didn't need to come, I'm fine, go home and do your homework." My sister was also there. I felt unusually sleepy, so I laid down on the floor and dozed off for 10-20 minutes. At the time I didn't know why I was able to sleep on such a hard floor, during a time in my life when I hadn't napped for well over a decade. In retrospect, it might have been because the hospital room was warmer than anywhere I had been since September. Our house was impossible to warm up with Dad and I gone all day, and my high school wasn't well heated, either. When I got up, Mom urged me to go home. She couldn't bare to be a burden. Plus, it was starting to snow, and she got very nervous about people driving in the snow.
It's beautiful to drive while snowflakes fall. The snow wasn't sticking so I wasn't nervous; I knew I had time to get safely home. I was deep in thought. When you get to the western edge of White Salmon, leaving town on SR 141, the road is flanked by oaks that arch over and form a sort of tunnel. I was awe-struck by this picture, with the snowflakes pouring down, and I began to cry. I didn't know the reason, but I was feeling something and it needed to come out. Perhaps it was the strangeness of seeing my mother in a hospital, or the prospect of going home to a cold and empty house. Despite how much I had hated the way my mom's anxiety had limited my options so much throughout my childhood, I think this is when I started realizing how dear to me she was. This is when our relationship started shifting, when I started feeling anxious for her.
