"Take a left after the O-X-X-O." The Oxxo? Just say Oxxo! Google Maps lady was doing a number on the Spanish.
"Level 3 has arrived in 25." the disembodied voice announced while we followed my mom through the cavernous hallways of Grady's emergency area. My mom was Level 3, arriving in 25. I remember being nervous that they were taking so much care. Nurses and doctors started asking a lot of questions. My sister and I helped answer them and then, while we stood next to our mom's gurney, a stern looking nurse came over and said that though they had asked both of us to come to the back with my mom, only one of us could remain back there with her. I went up front. Horrible things were happening there but I just sat in a fog, staring forward. Patients that required police intervention, street people in horrible states, I can keep going but I don't want to. As much as I appreciated their care with my mom, Grady looked like what I imagine a field hospital in Iraq must have been like. I found myself thinking over and over, people should not die in a place like this.
We left for Mexico Saturday morning, my first day of Spring Break. We made it all the way to Victoria, Texas and set out for the border on Easter Sunday. We crossed over in McAllen/Reynosa instead of the Laredo crossing that we were more familiar with. Though Reynosa isn't the safest city, all of the Texas crossings have issues and the McAllen/Reynosa crossing shaved off a little bit of driving time. As we got closer, we started seeing Border Patrol trucks and got in the line for the bridge to Reynosa. As we got closer to the painted line on the bridge delineating the end of the United States and the beginning of Mexico, the concertina wire gave away and then, we were there. Temple bobbed around in the backseat, looking out the window.
My mom did not have a stroke. They weren't really sure what happened, but all of the really horrible stuff was ruled out. My sister started going over to my mom's house daily, often bringing food. I went by after work and on the first weekend after the incident. We cleaned the majority of her house. We were trying to make her environment healthier, hoping it would help her be healthier.
We got immigration stuff taken care of and our temporary vehicle importation permit. We drove through Reynosa and shortly after, started seeing all kinds of law enforcement - the Mexican military, the National Guard, various police types riding standing up in the back of pickup trucks with big guns and ski masks covering their faces. A little later, we saw a large convoy of Pemex trucks, guarded front and back by the National Guard. And then, we drove on to Santiago, a small town near Monterrey. We found the neighborhood where our rented house was and were relieved when we realized that we initially pulled up to the wrong address, a house overflowing with junk. A little down the street, a big nice wall surrounded the actual house we rented and the entire family who owned it sat on the front porch, keys in hand. We are kind of used to just getting a code to get in the door when we rent a house and never meeting the people that actually own it, but this was different.
The house has a big yard surrounding it, all encased in a sturdy wall. Temple runs laps around the whole thing. There is a large nice pool and a mountain view. I am trying to coax Temple into the pool, but she's not feeling it yet. The first day here was almost one hundred degrees.
Yesterday, I saw a dog poking his face through a gap in the wall-gate. He had love in his eyes. He and Temple touched noses, then he ran away. Minutes later, I saw him back again, nose poking through the gate. And away he went again. Minutes later, he came back with a second dog.
Temple poked her face through the gap and the second dog licked her nose and ran away.
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