Dee offering her ideas was extremely helpful because it brought the perspective of someone who wasn’t going through it themselves but was trying to be a caregiver and supporter. There were tons of mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and partners and friends out there, all who would want to know how they could help someone in my position. What they should and shouldn’t do or say, how they could help when they felt helpless and sad.
There was even an element of therapy to it all. I liked that. I liked that I would be able to help people feel better about their situations and doing so by experiencing everything and documenting it. I would be going through all of it for the first time, and my viewers would see that. I was determined to give them a honest perspective of what it was like to learn what changes and challenges life held as I learned about it.
It wasn’t sideline reporting for the NFL, but it was something that used my talents and could help other people. I was proud of that. If Dee was able to help me as much as it seemed like she would be able to with coming up with ideas and doing camera work for me, then it was also going to be something we did that let me stay closer to my sister. I appreciated that aspect of it too, and so did Dee.
After a couple of hours of talking about things, I was more excited than ever about it, and Dee offered to order a pizza, so we could keep chatting. I made my way into the living room, laptop under one arm, and made a workstation at the couch with a TV tray and the ring light that Dee brought over, and we started taking down our ideas and discussing them in detail.
Over the course of the evening, we came up with tons of things to do, and I ate my weight in pizza. Between the pizza, our discussions, and nostalgic old movies, Dee and I dozed off on the two couches. At some point, I felt a blanket being draped over me, and for the split second I was awake. With my eyes still shut in a dreamlike state, I thanked the universe for the sister I had before dozing back off to sleep.
14
GERRY
After Mom and Dad left, the next few days were spent either at work catching up or at home decompressing. Once a few days had gone by, I realized that I had neglected to refill several of my pantry items. None more important than Captain Clovis’ dry food.
Captain Clovis was a laid-back cat. Most days saw him sunning in the window or curled up in the cat tree hammocks when he wasn’t eating or prowling around the perimeter. But when he ate, he ate voraciously and was rather picky about what was being offered. He had a specific kind of dry food that he was rather loud about wanting to be out all the time and two brands of wet food that he expected at specific times of the day.
Being the kind of pet owner I was, I capitulated to my furry friend and spoiled him terribly. But the last few days I had been a little neglectful, and now that I had run out of his dry food, I was hearing it. It was first thing in the morning when he jumped onto my chest, meowing loudly in my face. I rubbed his head, but when that didn’t seem to quiet him or get him to curl up, I sat up and noticed the giant dry food feeder was empty. Only two little balls of dry food remained inside, trapped above the dispenser.
“Alright, Captain, alright,” I said as I got up and yawned.
It was nearly nine on Saturday, which usually was the day I slept in. Captain Clovis was generally fine with just dry food until about noon, so I got to doze most of Saturday mornings. Not this one. I stretched and grabbed a new pair of socks out of the drawer before heading to the bathroom.
Grabbing a quick shower and brushing my teeth, I got dressed and headed out of the house before Captain Clovis could take a swipe at me in anger.
I had a small list that I kept in my phone of things I ran out of regularly and then a second list of things I tended to need biweekly. There were a couple of places I could go to get the groceries I needed but only one place I could get them all in one shop. The supermarket at the other end of town was a bit of a drive away, but it would have everything I needed, and it was a bit of a novelty to me, even still. They didn’t have this kind of a store in Quebec, or if they did, I certainly never went to them. But here in Tennessee, it was where almost everyone shopped on a regular basis.