I couldn't have been more excited to go home for summer. By some miracle, my manager gave me six weeks off, which meant six weeks with no obligation to anything. I rocked my finals, pushed through my final shifts at work, and it was finally time to head home.
I had reasons to be home. My father was recovering from brain surgery, my grandma was in the hospital, and it was rainy and cold in Berkeley. All I wanted was to be home in the sunshine, surrounded by love.
Monday, May 17th, 2010: Hannah Rae Wirsta's 8th Birthday
After spending the night in Santa Cruz, I woke up eagerly to a cloudy, gloomy day. After a cup of coffee and goo conversation with an old friend, it was time to depart. I didn't mind the clouds. I knew that in no time, the clouds would be clear, the sun would be strong, and summer would finally be here, in full force.
I called my mom to give her a quick update, and she let me know I'd be going to Hannah's birthday dinner as soon as I got home. She said, "Let's hope Nana holds out one more day. I'd hate to have her die on Hannah's birthday. She can hold out until midnight, right?" Red flag. Right there.
My drive home had very little traffic, and was very steady, much like the constant bank of clouds that seemed to follow me. As soon as I got to Santa Barbara, it started raining. What. And the rain only got heavier and heavier right there. It's moments like this where I can't help but think that life is a book, and God is an author; this is dark symbolism, dramatic and stormy foreshadowing of new plot points that would surface shortly. And oh, did they surface.
I finally got off the freeway to get home, and the rain was in full force. I called my cousin Cory to tell him I was dropping off my stuff, and then I'd head straight over for Hannah's birthday. "Okay, take your time. Did you hear Nana died?"
Pause.
"...No I didn't."
"Yeah, it just happened about an hour ago."
"Well..." Cory and I had been joking for the better part of a month about our Nana's death. Things with Joy Lees were... complicated, to say the least. She had lost her husband sometime in the late 70s, and raised six children on her own. The Joy Lees I met was bitter, angry, jaded. And for that reason, we shared a troubled misunderstanding that never quite mended itself. It's sad to have a grandmother you don't love, but there was nothing to do to change how I felt about her. I was angry for how she treated my own mother. I thought she was selfish. Cory and I had spent the past few weeks joking about an inevitability that had finally happened. There was nothing really to be said, no jokes to be made. "Well, okay then."
I hung up the phone. Great, I thought. Leave it to Nana to ruin my first day home. And Hannah's birthday. There was nothing else I could do except go home, change, and be with my family. I pulled into the driveway, stepped out into the rain, and grabbed my five or six bags of luggage. I managed to get them all and drag them to the front door in one trip. I put the bags down to unlock the door. The dead bolt slipped out of its socket, but the door was still locked. Fuck.
The thing about or front door is that the bottom lock is broken. It doesn't open from the outside with a key anymore. So normally, we just use the deadbolt as the lock. It's safe enough. It is Oak Park after all. I should have known. If the door was unlocked, it would have made my day the slightest bit convenient. I climbed the gate, scrambled unto the roof of the garage, and slipped into the second story window. My brother and I always kept the window in our bathroom unlocked. It made it easy to sneak out.
I finally made it to Hannah's birthday part for some pizza, and then went to Cedars Sinai Medical Center to see my parents. There was nothing worse than seeing my crestfallen mother and disabled father on this night. My father had already digressed to the point of a little brother a long time ago because of his tumor; this, however, was much worse. He couldn't even get a word out, and my mother was unraveling at the seams. I drove home alone, solemnly in the rain, back to our empty house, and went to sleep.
Like I said, most people chalk this up to a bad day. But how did this all happen? What are the chances of rain in Southern California in the middle of May? The chances of getting locked out of my house? The chances of losing a Nana? The chances of seeing a mother cry? These occurrences alone aren't enough to be comically unfortunate, but as a collective, it's just too much at once to be true. Things like this are normal to me, though. They're part of my life. And when Coincidence gives you a swift kick in the balls, sometimes you just have to laugh. Even if it hurts like fucking hell.
