Here

I’m still here.

Last month was unexpectedly busy with two children passing illnesses back-and-forth. Mostly C, but E had an ear infection that required an after-hours pediatrician visit. After the male resident examined E, C looked up at me and asked, “When is the doctor going to be here?”
“Well, that man was a doctor, sweetie. Another doctor will be here with that man soon.”
“No, mommy, that man wasn’t a doctor. Doctors are girls.”
“Boys can be doctors .” I told her, thinking back to all the times I’ve taken C to the doctor.

And you know what? She’s always been seen by female doctors. Even when I had to take her to the ER last year—female doctors. 

So C, who seems to have shaken her tummy bug (I hope!), thinks doctors must be women.

In the midst of this, I took E and C to the beach. (During a period of good health). My father and uncle are selling their father’s condo at the beach, and so we had to travel there and pack some stuff, as well as say a quiet, personal good-bye to the condo. I may not have great memories of my grandfather, but I never went to this beach condo with him. In fact, it was this condo that I first took C to the beach. It was here that I was first alone with her, without any other adults around. I t was here I realized I could be a single parent, and that it wasn’t the Death Sentence I thought it was. C and I really, really bonded here.

I shall miss it and remember it fondly.