I got back from Atlanta yesterday afternoon. The trip was hard, and I don’t think I can do it justice by trying to write about it, so I’ll just hit the highlights:

* After I got in on Friday night, my brother, sister & I stayed at Tracy’s friend Renee’s apartment. My sister’s birthday is on Sunday, so Renee got a little cake & we sang happy birthday to her. It didn’t seem appropriate to do that with the other family members around, given the circumstances of our visit, but it was cool to have a little mini-party with just us.

* I have concluded that even though all of my family is loud, and people who I’m not related to tell me that I’m loud on a pretty regular basis, my sister is, hands down, the loudest. And she really does laugh like Cruella DeVille. (Think head thrown back, loud “muwahahaha!” cackle.)

* On the way to lunch on Saturday, I tripped & fell on a curb. Before you ask, no, I was not drinking in the morning. I inherited this klutz gene from my mom, I come by it honestly and this type of thing is not at all uncommon. But I was wearing capri pants, so it was bare skin on sidewalk. It was one of those falls that feels like it’s happening in slow motion in your head – like “gee, this is really going to hurt when I land…” and then BAM! Ouch. I fell in such a way that my left leg was out to the side and my right leg folded up under me, so I ended up with a skinned right knee & shin, plus the inside of my left ankle and foot are skinned too. It still hurts. I grabbed my jeans out of my suitcase in the car and changed in the ladies’ room of the restaurant because I didn’t want people looking at my wounded legs for the rest of the day. Ugh.

* My aunt, the lesbian new age psychologist (p.s., she used to be a nun), had a couple of oversharing/too much information moments with me. One of them actually came from her new partner, who told us when giving us the grand tour of their house, gestured toward all the woods behind their backyard and said “See, there’s 27 acres of trees out there. It’s so secluded, one of our favorite things to do is run out the back door naked to get in the hot tub. No one can see us, it’s great!” Before any of you guys start thinking about how hot lesbians are or whatever, let me add that my aunt and her partner are both 60 years old. Re-write that mental image accordingly. Eww. Not so cool & sexy now, is it?

* On the flight home, I got upgraded to first class, and I swear I have no idea how that happened. They had assigned me to seat 15-G, and I had gotten all settled in, then the flight attendant comes down the aisle and says “Are you Cynthia?” to me. I confirmed, and she said, “Here’s your new seat assignment,” and handed me a boarding pass that says I’m supposed to be in seat 6-A. Right on. That was so cool. I had my own little private TV, I watched different, unedited movies (no “Garfield” for me, suckas! I’m watching Johnny Depp say the F-word in “Secret Window”!), and I played video games. Oh, and the seats turn into recliners so you can actually sleep comfortably. Sweet! That was the nicest flight I’ve ever been on.

As for seeing my cousin, it was good. She was really excited to see all of us, she was sitting up & acting like her normal self for at least 30 minutes, maybe closer to an hour. It felt like any normal family get-together where we just sit around and talk about whatever everyone is up to – except for the IV’s and the oxygen mask and all of that stuff, but that was all pretty easy to ignore. Saying good-bye to her was difficult, although by that point, she wasn’t feeling well anymore and wanted us all to leave. I didn’t do so well at holding myself together after we left the hospital. I can’t remember the last time I’ve cried that much. But I suppose it was good to get it out of my system, in spite of how puffy my eyes were the next day. Damn. Like I said earlier, it was rough.

However, one bright note is that I think that this experience has brought my cousins and I closer together. This was the first time we’ve all said “I love you” when we were saying good-bye to each other. Even my brother, sister & I don’t usually say that, but we did this weekend. I guess it’s usually just understood without being said, but this time seemed especially important to say it out loud. So I suppose that’s a positive outcome, even though it sucks that it took something this drastic for it to happen.

Happy birthday to my sister, who:

* Laughs like Cruella DeVille. (It’s true!)
* Taught me how to apply eye make-up, style my hair, shave my legs, etc.
* Lets me call her crying at 2 a.m., and cries with me on the phone.
* Buys me cute girly I.N.C. brand shirts and badass biker chick studded belts.
* Calls me 30 minutes into a second date to ask how it’s going. (Incidentally, that was my 2nd date with Dave, so it was going quite well, thank you very much.)
* Is one of the funniest people I know (and gets even funnier after her 2nd glass of wine).
* Addresses animals in an even higher-pitched baby voice than I am capable of (and I’m pretty squeaky).
* Has bailed me out of more than one financial crisis.
* Broke in my parents first, so I got away with more stuff (getting my ears pierced at 9, rather than 13, was a BIG deal).
* Used to help me chase & catch gclark so I could kiss him when I was in lurve with him. (I think I was 4 or 5 years old at the time, and for the record, gclark’s two sisters also helped with the chasing and catching; poor guy was helplessly outnumbered).
* Calls & wakes me up early on weekend mornings to ask me my shoe size because she was at a street market in Manhattan, and they had these adorable little china girl slippers, and they only cost $4, so she’s going to buy some & send them to me but she needs to know my shoe size first, so what is it? (Actual conversation.)
* Is one of those types of people who you want to hate because she’s smart, successful and beautiful, but you can’t because she’s just so damn nice.

…and too many other things to mention. Happy birthday, Tracy!

The latest on my cousin Teresa is that she’s doing significantly worse, and it’s definitely getting very near to the end for her. So, my brother, sister & I (plus my cousin Catherine) are all flying to Atlanta this weekend. I’m using my mom’s frequent flyer miles to get there, which means that I have the worst itinerary ever: I leave Seattle at 9 a.m., have a layover at LAX, have another layover in Memphis (only 1/2 an hour, not long enough to see my friends), and finally get to Atlanta at 9:15 at night. Ugh. Then I fly back on Sunday morning. It’s going to be rough.

Last night, when I was calling relatives to figure out everyone’s plans, I called my uncle Brian, who is Teresa’s father. He was at the hospital when I called him, and Teresa happened to be awake (she’s on a morphine drip now, so she’s out of it most of the time), so I got to talk to her for a minute. I asked her what she thought of us coming to see her, and she said that was cool. She asked me to bring her a shot glass from Seattle, and I told her I would. [Side note: I’m now also trying to get my sister to get her a NYC shot glass, a Cincinnati one from my brother, and a Raleigh/Durham one from my cousin Catherine, just so we’ll have a complete theme.]

I know this is going to be really hard, but I feel like it’s something I should do. I have several other cousins who won’t be there, for various reasons — one has a fear of flying, one is a med school resident and is working 7 days a week (although he visited her last week), and a couple of them just “don’t feel comfortable with it”, although they’re ok with going to her funeral, which I don’t quite understand. The thing is, I don’t know what I’m going to say to her when I walk in the ICU room, and I especially don’t know how I’m going to say good-bye to her when I leave. I just know that this is important, and I hope that when the time comes, I have the grace to say something meaningful, so she knows how much she’s loved.

Anyway, that’s the story. Oh, and while I’m in town, I’ll also get to meet my lesbian new age psychologist aunt’s new partner, so that’s bound to be interesting. Wish me luck.