Amy's America

I had a wonderfully relaxing three days in Florida. I got some rest, some sun and a whole lot of love.

I also realized it will be incredibly difficult to detach from work. This may be a surprise to some, but I really thought it was going to be easy to turn the laptop and blackberry off. Yet I worked some of every day I was in Florida and felt bad not being at work for all the events happening, both planned and unplanned. Then when Vanessa said she’s cutting off the work talk from here on out, I felt like she was putting me out in the cold (for my own good, of course). I take comfort in the fact that I will be able to coax stuff out of her along the way (maybe bribe) – and that I do have other sources! David was right, though: this ain’t gonna to be easy.

But it was so nice to have a few days with this part of my family and somewhat away from all the cancer stuff. I spent as much time as I could with my crazy fun nephews, who I hate living so far away from but who are always so excited to see me, even when I’m not with their cool cousin Nick. And it’s amazing how their minds work. You wouldn’t think they would really get what is going on with me, but when they played the lottery Friday (with the fortune cookie numbers that eight-year-old Hudson instantly memorized), Holden said was that if they win he is going to donate all the money to cancer research.  Not what I’d expect from a six-year-old. I didn’t even know he knew cancer needed research!  I guess you can’t underestimate what young ones absorb and take to heart…

I also found that you’re never too old for your dad to teach you something new. We spent a leisurely morning at the beach treasure hunting. I have always been great at finding beach treasures – at least they are treasures to me: shells, rocks, sand dollars, starfish, hermit crabs. But I’ve never found a shark tooth, although I’ve tried. This time, dad taught me how – what to look for (the shape, the gum line), how to tell how old they are (black are the oldest – billions of years, brown – millions of years and white – most recent) and that they are lighter than rocks and shells so you have to grab them before the water sweeps them away. He started finding a bunch (including a big brown one that’s about an inch wide.) Then I started to catch on and finally found my first shark tooth! I soon found a few more and went home with my pink Red Sox baseball cap full of beach treasures. Dad made me take all the shark teeth – except I gave the first one I found to him.