We moved this morning, but not as far as we'd originally planned. We decided to follow the sunshine, so we headed south - about 6 campground rows. Yep. We're still at Organ Pipe, but in a new site, in the "No Generators" section. Just a tad quieter and less populated. We'd just settled in when an elderly gentleman wandered up to our back door and said he was looking for his wife. She'd taken the dog for a walk, and the dog had returned, but without the wife. They were supposed to be leaving today. Darell offered to drive him around the campground to look for her, so off they went. Not much later I saw a Park Ranger driving slowly down the road, and I talked to him about the search. He said that the man was a bit confused, and that he (the Ranger) had told him to stay put at his campsite and that they would all look for the wife. I told him that if she turns up and now there's a missing husband, that he is riding around with my husband looking for her. When Darell returned (wife still not found), he said that the man was very confused and distressed. We took a walk around the perimeter trail to see if she had perhaps walked out there and fallen, and there were others also searching around the campground. When we got back, we went to the man's campsite and asked if the wife had turned up - she had! As we were standing talking to him, the wife came walking up , and I asked her if she was okay. She said, "He has Alzheimer's" and I said, "I'm sure you told him where you were going." "I did, I did," she said and "I'm sorry you bothered" - and the sadness, the weariness, and the guilt weighed down her words. "It's okay," I assured her. We went back to our site and waved as they passed by in their van, heading home, or someplace else.
A life story is a fragile bubble. Enjoy the chirping of the birds, the laughter of children, a hand held tightly in your own, or a shared joke with an old friend. For everything is in a state of change, of coming into being or passing out of it. And when all is said and done, it is the moment that counts. Each and every one of them, for each and every one of us.
That's a somewhat sad story (although at least it turned out well). It made me think of another recent story:
ReplyDeleteMissing Woman Joins Search Party Looking for Herself - March 12, 2014
A "missing" woman on vacation in Iceland managed to join a search party looking for herself! According to the Toronto Sun, a group of tourists spent hours on Saturday night looking for a missing female near Iceland's Eldgja canyon, only to find out she was among the search party. The group were travelling through Iceland on a bus tour and stopped near the volcanic canyon in the southern highlands. One of the women on the bus left the group to change her clothes and freshen up but when she came back her bus mates did not recognise her. Word quickly spread of a missing passenger and amazingly the woman did not recognise her own description and joined in the search. Nearly 50 people searched the terrain in vehicles and on foot with the coastguard even preparing to send in a helicopter. However the search was called off at around 3am when it became obvious the "missing" woman was accounted for and had been searching for herself.
I wonder if she was blond?