My Run- Run- Run- Run- Run- Runaway.

Hey y'all -

There's a lot of stuff from this summer that I haven't had a chance to recap yet, like our trip to Arkansas and the Crossley family coming to visit us, and Grandma Ron coming from Colorado, and this big/crazy swim party we threw for your school last weekend and blah blah blah. It's the curse of summer in Montana that, with only three or four months of good weather, you feel like you have to cram as much in as you can. Of course this year, the normal stress of summer was compounded by the story I'm about to tell you below, plus what I've started to call "this brain thing."

So here's where we are on my brain, by the way:

If nothing else, I've learned through this experience that I am surrounded by wonderful, loving people who like me even more than I thought they did. A doctor throws out a phrase like "life-threatening," and all of a sudden the people around you turn into the best versions of themselves and you realize how supported you are, and the whole thing seems a little more manageable. Thanks to Harry and Caroline Nelson for your card, and Jane Rosman for your e-mail, and Brynn and Nate for your sweet texts and of course the family members who wanted ten-minute updates, round the clock.

After a few weeks and a few more check-ups, nobody seems to know any more than they did when I was in the hospital. It was just a freak thing, it seems. A vein blew, it leaked, it caused insane pressure, there's no aneurism, it'll heal on its own like a big ol' bruise, just give it time. Because that area of my brain is still a little swollen and under pressure, I'm having some minor (mostly irritating) memory loss. I get 3/4 of the way through a sentence and have to search for the noun to complete my thought. Or I start to leave a message on someone's machine and there's a lot of dead air as I try to remember why I was calling. Like, "Hi, this is Brooke and I'm wondering..." (20 second pause) "...if you could send me those pictures we talked about." Doctors tell me this will all go away and I'll be back to "normal" within six weeks. In the meantime, my friend/boss Will is enjoying telling me I'm doing a great job "...for someone with a leaky brain."

No, there's no Human Resources department I can report him to.

___________

Moving on to other health-related issues, here's how Laney took years off my life last weekend:

Last Friday night, your dad and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie when Laney came crashing down the stairs with her rolling suitcase. She had put on a cute dress, tights, and sensible walking shoes. We noticed she was loading up her suitcase with a water bottle and some other necessities.

"Where are you going?" we asked. Laney told us she was going to Disney World to see Peg Peg. Assuming she was pretending, we went back to watching our movie. When she was all packed up, she wheeled her suitcase to the front door, opened it, and said, "I'm really leaving. I'm going out the gate and everything. But I'm going to look both ways for cars and be safe." "Okay!" we said, because we are stupid.

Maybe two minutes later, I turned to your dad and said, "I can't jump up and run like I used to, so will you go check and be sure she hasn't actually run away from home?" Your dad went out the door, and sure enough, he found you dragging your suitcase down the alley across the street. He brought you back, and we had what I thought was a memorable discussion about how you don't leave home without a grown-up. Your dad whispered to me, "I just had a nightmare flash-forward to 12 years from now, when she does the same thing, but there's a punk in a Trans Am waiting for her at the end of the driveway."

Because I'm a big fan of logic, I explained to Laney that one doesn't walk to Disney World. One needs a plane ticket. "I could fly through Denver," Laney suggested, "if someone can just tell me the number of my second plane." Still, I told her, she would need a ticket to get there. Another day. Not today. "You could save up your Granny Jack money and buy a ticket someday," I suggested. Even a four year-old knows that at a dollar a week, it's going to take a while to save your way to Florida, so Laney got on the phone and called Peg Peg. "Will you buy me a ticket to Disney World?" I heard her ask. I couldn't exactly hear my mother's response, and I don't want to throw around terms like "unbridled enthusiasm," but I got the sense that my mother was telling Laney that she'd LOVE to buy her a ticket to Orlando. Though, she later told me, she DID tell Laney that the trip wouldn't be right away because we'd need to find a time that worked for everyone.

My mother's speech about "Not now, but definitely later, after I work it out with your mom" must have sounded to Laney like that mile-a-minute voiceover at the end of every commercial for a prescription medication: "Maycausebloatinganddiarrheaandlossoflibidoandbleedingfromtheears." Because she absolutely ignored that part.

The next morning - Saturday - your dad left at 5am to go to Helena for the Reserves. At 7am, I came downstairs to find Grandma Sue in the kitchen. Laney was out playing in the yard. Sue laughed and told me that Laney had been talking her ear off about how she's going to go to Disney World and already had her bag packed. I told Sue about Laney's attempt to walk to Orlando the night before and assured her that we had given Laney a stern talk about safety and staying inside the gate.

That's when we both noticed that it had gotten awfully quiet in the backyard.

We ran around the house and yard, calling Laney's name, until Sue noticed, "Laney's suitcase is gone." I swear my heart stopped. Sue jumped in her car and drive off to search the nearby streets for our little runaway. After the longest five minutes of my life, Sue drove back to the house; I could see her shaking her head "no" through the windshield. She hadn't seen Laney.

I decided I would take one more loop around the neighborhood before I called the police, so I grabbed Hagen and threw him in the car seat in the truck. As I was walking around to the truck's driver's side, I happened to look up the road. About four blocks away, I saw a little flash of hot pink on the far sidewalk as it moved between the parked cars.

I took off running.

It took me about two blocks to remember that I had only been out of the hospital for five days and had been cautioned to not over-exert myself. I was wearing your dad's Crocs because they were the first shoes I'd found, and I was trying to keep them on my feet while trying to move fast enough that I could catch up with that little dot of pink while also praying, "Dear Jesus, please don't let my brain explode on Burton Street."

I made it to the corner where I thought I'd seen Laney and hung a left, still jogging with my toes in a curl so those stupid plastic shoes wouldn't fall off my feet. There, another block ahead, I saw Laney, standing on the sidewalk, holding her suitcase, and talking to two grandmothers who'd happened to be working in their yard.

I fell to my knees in exhaustion and relief and Laney came running over to hug me. Grandma #1 said, "She was just asking us for directions to the airport. I thought something seemed a little off about that." I would have said that's the dumbest thing I ever heard - I mean, HELL, YES something is "off" when a preschooler is wheeling her butterfly suitcase down the street asking for directions to the airport. But then Grandma #2 took the crown when she said, "We were thinking we should either call the police or put it on Craigslist or something."

I later shared an abridged version of this story on facebook, where I really enjoyed this comment from my friend James:

Sue pulled up just then, and I asked her to go rescue Hagen from the backseat of the truck, where he was still hanging out, probably wondering where everybody went.

I walked Laney home, sobbing the whole way. I can't explain how I felt, except to say that it was an overwhelming concoction of angry and relieved and sad and grateful and a teensy bit proud that I have a ballsy kid who isn't afraid to head out into the great big world by herself (and who knows that Denver is a great place to connect.) Never before had I wanted to hug and squeeze and kiss and beat the hell out of someone, all at once.

I cried, she cried, Sue cried. Laney got sent to her room and couldn't go to the fair. I talked to her about how what she did was so so so so wrong, and then Sue told her how she'd scared the bejeezus out of us, and then Peg Peg called and wanted to talk to her, though most of Peg's talk centered around logistics like, "You know when it's time to go to Disney, I'll send you a ticket first."

Remember when I used to write posts on this blog about how having a newborn was so hard?

Ha ha ha.

Love,
Mom