Bryon spent the last two and a half weeks of his life in New York City. I had him moved from our regional medical center because he needed better care. It was two of the most optimistic and the most scariest weeks of my life. I was optimistic because he had a world class medical team caring for him. I was scared because he was still very sick and I knew that even if he survived, the road to recovery was going to be complicated.
I don’t usually think about my time in New York. I mean, it ended with Bryon dying.
Yesterday I was reading about how one of my blogging friends spent her birthday in NYC. She spent part of her day in Washington Heights, which was the part of NYC where Bryon’s hospital was located.
It dawned on me that I can’t ignore New York City forever. Someday I will have to return. I may want to take my daughter to see the Rockettes or take her to the Natural History Museum. Or the Bronx Zoo. Or maybe I would go with my Spanish teacher friend to find an Argentinian restaurant. Or to see The Bangles with Kimmy Gibbler and my Latin Teacher friend the next time they go on tour. It would be ridiculous to avoid a whole city for the rest of my life because of what happened. I will probably just avoid Washington Heights.
So I was reading my blogging friends birthday post and then I was on Facebook. I checked “On This Day” and sure enough, it was a post about the one fun thing I did during those two and a half weeks.
My daughter’s Godmother came down with her (now) fiance and got hotel rooms in the Times Square area. She was telling me all about the city as we drove downtown. I am a small town girl from Maine after all. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was my one fun night in New York City.
Though there were other good things about being in the city.
I had a family to stay with. They didn’t even know me but they knew Bryon. They welcomed me into their home and they were so kind to me. They stay ended up being short but had Bryon survived, he might have been in the city for months. They never once gave me a time limit. I know they were rooting for the slow recovery. It would worth a trip to NYC to see them and have them meet my daughter.
Bryon’s friends in NYC got to see him. That was great.
The team was much more optimistic and Bryon’s spirits were the best they had been through the whole ordeal. In Albany, Bryon was too depressed to facetime with our daughter, but in NYC, he was happy facetiming her.
Bryon still had his sense of humor. It took me a week to figure out that I could take the express train to get to the hospital faster. He shook his head and rolled his eyes at me.
But right now, NYC remains the city where Bryon died. Maybe someday I will return but it probably won’t be anytime soon.
Running Forward...My Way 