Peggy’s Excellent Adventure

Sept. 24

My day of departure began with a momentous and beautiful gesture: My son, a priest of two months, said a private mass for my two daughters and me.  But what was momentous was that the mass was for me and my safe journey – just me. No other dead people like you usually hear in mass, no special saints – ME. Pretty cool. I now have my own personal Grace Valet! And if my other son who is also studying for the priesthood becomes a priest, I am like Super Mario and become Super Graced. Thanks God.

After mass it was on home to finish packing which for me has been a month long process. I am the original­­­­­­­­ Uber Organizer. I make lists, then I make more lists, I make piles, I re-arrange the piles, I get out suitcases, I buy new suitcases, I change the lists, I check off lists, I buy all the necessities, then I buy them again. I am prepared for nuclear holocaust, worldwide famine, Armageddon, dinner with the Queen of England, an audience with the Pope;). So the final closing of the suitcases comes down to which pair of black shorts I will bring. After modeling for my daughters that little matter is decided and my son reminds me to be sure and weigh the suitcase ahead of time. I assure him I did that 3 days ago and had an extra 15 pounds. After all, I am the Uber Organizer! So on this very hot 90 degree Fall day where I refuse to turn on the AC in the house, I struggle to close the last suitcase. Failing because my arthritic fingers can’t get those stupid little plastic clippy things together, my daughter quickly snaps them for me and I zip it shut and smugly drag it to the scale. After several ridiculous attempts to balance the teetering case I finally read the weight at 55 pounds!!!!!! Ahhhhhhh! Not possible. I had this planned! I grab the other case and do the same stupid acrobatics –46 pounds. I’m starting to hyper ventilate. There is NO room in the 46 pound case. I had this planned. Everything perfectly in it’s proper place just like always. I’m starting to feel very warm. My daughter very practically tells me to leave something home. Horror! I had every item meticulously planned and accounted for for weeks. I take out a tiny, little travel candle. I guess I can live without that and it is contraband on the ship anyway, but it doesn’t weigh four pounds. I try to take from the larger case and put in to the smaller case and eventually, after much staining of zippers and some choice words (I have now lost all the grace received at mass that morning),I get them within a pound of the 50 pound limit. But now I find I cannot carry the brand new suitcase I purchased just for this trip as it is too heavy and full to fit onto the other suitcase for me to pull them together – as planned. I am now sweating profusely, or perspiring as my mother used to say, and the clock is ticking. I run to the basement to look for other possibilities. Now please understand, my son leaves in 2 days for his final year of 5 years of study in Rome and my daughter leaves in 7 days for her year of study in Rome. Suitcases are at a premium at the moment in our house and I cannot steal from their source. I review the left-over’s and choose a rolling duffel I have turned up my nose at for many years and never before considered as up to my standards. Praise the Lord I never gave it away. I race upstairs and do the most un-Peggy-like thing I have ever done before: massive, uncontrolled throwing of my precious folded and segregated items into an unregulated cavern of duffeldom. I’m smashing underwear next to shoes on top of medicine next to pj’s filled with books crammed with hairdryer and curling iron – where are the nice little dividers and pockets!?! But I did get to put back the candle. And….. it all weighed in just about right if the scale gods at the airport were smiling when the time came for me to fly away.

And fly I finally get to do. I tell Billie Jean to be good as I say good bye and I ask St Francis to give her a peaceful and easy death if she should die before I return. She has followed me all day in my frantic packing mode knowing something is wrong, but now she simply wags her tail assuming I’ll be home later on. Good dog Billie.  After tears with my older daughter in the morning, the two Rome children take me to the airport. I kiss my son the priest good bye at the curb and hold back the tears pretty well. How many times have I left this son at the airport, first to travel the world, then to study in Rome? That is a whole other story and now it is his turn to leave me at the airport. My 19 year old daughter helps me in with my luggage because I am really a klutz with the 2 heavy pieces, 2 carry-ons and my bad arthritis and I don’t have on my glasses so I can’t read a thing the kiosk is telling me. She is doing everything for me and I wonder how the heck I am ever going to get through the next three months alone if I can’t even get my luggage checked without help. We are both laughing because it is pretty comical and because we know we have to say emotional good byes before we both embark on major journeys in our lives. After the luggage is checked she walks me to the escalator and we hug, say I love yous and start to cry and laugh and cry and laugh. We are so silly, but she is off to study abroad and I am off to travel alone – who knows what lies ahead and all I can do is wrap her in my arms and wish I could protect her with super powers, but prayer is the only power I possess. So I promise to pray for her as she does for me and off I go—alone.