New York Weekend

The weekend of the 15th my family and I with the exception of Neil took a road trip to New York. We went because my Mom's Dad is very sick. So we all went to Brooklyn's Hospital to visit him along with other family members on my mothers side. It was quite interesting - the whole experience that is. It started with the morning. Mom, Dad, Trina, Stacey and Victor and I helped pack a whole bunch of fruit, crackers, chips, veggies and drinks in the back of a rental van. We then took off at around 7:30am and headed to New York. Both my Dad and Victor (brother in law) took turns driving. Surprisingly we got there pretty fast. We arrived in Brooklyn at exactly 12 noon. And the trip felt shorter because it was enjoyable. Well the whole time my nose was in one of my books for class - no doubt making the time go by even faster cause I learned a lot in my reading -but still talking with the fam made the trip less long. Oh and it also helped that we had really good directions..thats always good!

I have never been to Brooklyn New York before. The most I had ever gone to was Manhatten and another city....which i forgets its name. But yeah for the most part, what I saw of New York was always the places that were wealthy, and suburby. However Brooklyn was nothing like that - well atleast where the hospital was. It was actually quite ghetto to say the least. When i stepped out the van, I felt like I was in another world for a bit. I kinda felt depressed at the thought of living there. If we had ever lived there, I know I would have def been successful cause I would have used everything in me to escape that place. When I was there, all of those movies - when you see a kid growing up in the ghetto and wishing "one day I'll get out of this place" came to mind. It felt just so hopeless as I looked around the streets. It surely made me appreciate my neck of the woods up in the Bean!

But yeah, the hospital was cool. My Mom's dad was so sick that he couldn't even speak to us really. All he did was stare at us and not really move. He has a whole bunch of things going on, but to this day I don't really know what his illness is. From the trip I just know he had many strokes, his memory comes and goes very very frequently, he can barely speak, and he falls asleep every 3 minutes atleast. So while my mother cared for him, we all just really stood or sat around while he just staired at us. He remembered my Mom which would make any daughter happy. Aside from that..we really just stood around and stared at him. It was hard for me to say much or even touch him because I really didn't know him. I don't ever remember seeing him - even though apparently I did when I was toddler. I never heard from him as I grew up...nor even knew what he looked like till that weekend. So yeah...i felt just a little detached to say the least.

Later that day, my Mom's step mom came and my mom's sister came (of which she has not seen for 40 years). It was crazy!! I can't imagine not seeing my family I had once lived with for 40 years....mm..wow..yeah so they were happy to see each other as you can imagine. Her sister brought her daughter in law which was cool. She was fairly newly married like Stacey and Victor, so naturally the people in that age group bonded.

Trina, Dad, and I just sat around and listened while family talked until I turned to my Dad and saw him falling asleep. Then I would nudge him back awake and tell him that I was hungry. With it getting late..my Dad jumped up, had us all hold hands around My mom's father, said a prayer, and before you know it we were back on the road headed to Boston. We stayed there for a little over 3 hours and we got back to Boston a little after 7pm. Exhausted upon arriving back home..some of us fell asleep while others hung out in front of the tv, while still others roamed the rooms of the house looking for something to do (me for the most part).

At 10 that evening, Neil dropped me off on campus on his way to work. It felt good to be finally back in my bed. I went straight to sleep because I knew I had to be up at 5 the next morning to study for more exams.