day 49: backtracking

We've been walking around in a daze for two days, coming off the whirlwind of hospitals and airline reservations and packing. We don't want to go. We wander around the house bumping into each other alternating saying i don't want to go back with are you having any pain? We are both terrified he'll get another stone attack before we get on the plane or worse, while on the plane itself. The pain comes so fiercely, it's all he can do not to pass out. I am begging the gods and goddesses and the moon and the earth for it to lie dormant until we get to the states.

Medical issues aside I am a bit scared. Scared it's not been long enough for me to forget my foolish ways. Scared I'll hop right back on the laptop, a virtual junkie. Scared I'll find the shower and the laundry too comforting, the sheets too cool and crisp. The adjusting has taken some time and now we are throwing ourselves backwards and I wonder if we are strong enough to resist the sanitary charms.

Friends here have enveloped us, one is house and dog sitting, another is ensuring M can get registered for kindergarten, a process I was supposed to start next week. Two others are taking us on the long journey to the airport, in order to fly home we've had to surrender our car, a process that ensures that we won't be in legal trouble upon return. We take his ultrasound pictures and doctor papers, I show it to the customs person hoping it will mean they will give us a break and surprisingly enough it does, the man studies the papers and looks at us we understand your situation and can work with you he says and I smile in gratitude, on the verge of tears all day.

Friends invited us for dinner, cooking is the last thing you need to worry about they said and so we sat under a palapa eating a delicious meal as the sun set still in disbelief that we have to go. In less than two months we've had our fair share of struggles, I imagine our village friends must think of us as calamitous gringos, one thing after another seems to be getting in our way and causing others to lend a hand. There's been nothing routine about it, for the past six weeks we've been really living, awake and alive and each day both bright and exhausting as we figure our way. We've figured it and now hit some bumps and wonder how long we'll be derailed while knowing the only thing that truly matters is that J is okay. But we can't believe we are walking backwards after such a short while.