quick one from the road.

Highway 101 is a beautiful thing to drive between Ventura and Santa Barbara. It hugs the coast, offering up the daily views of surfers and the occasional dolphin pod. Of course, further out you get the Channel Islands and a some offshore oil rigs. I've been spending a good bit of time in a hospice in Santa Barbara, watching my wife feed her mother and trying to keep the children from knocking the walls over.

Yesterday and today however the major task was taking care of a closet and drawers full of clothes and shoes that her mother will never again wear. It's a terrible thing for a child to have to go through his or her parent's clothes in that situation. We packed them in the rental and dropped them off at a thrift store. My wife cried the whole drive. My mother-in-law eats and drinks, but barely looks at you when she's even awake. Most of her time she sleeps. She hasn't spoken for quite some time. Her face in fact lacks any sort of affect.

We are coming back to DC Monday the 23rd, but there's so much unresolved out here, and as difficult as it is to sit in room with a parent who can no longer respond to you, it's even more difficult to return to DC and try to go about your business knowing she's lying there.