I Run These Towns

In early 2005 life was pretty good. I had a job I enjoyed, my own place in a neighborhood I loved, and I was coming into my own as a professional adult human. My Crohn's was under control, and I felt confident about my disease. I was heading to see my boyfriend in Florida early one January morning when I got a call from my sister that she'd been in a fender bender, and she was now in labor several weeks early with my niece. I called my boyfriend to cancel the trip, and he was super irritated by it. My only sister was in labor with my first niece, and he expected me to miss it. (Red flag number 8,463). I got to be in the delivery room when my beautiful niece was born, and I didn't realize then that it would likely be the only time I'd ever seen a baby being born. It was a special way to start 2005.  With my newborn niece at her baby shower (that she got to attend) That summer my health was great for the first time in years. I hung out with my sister and niece, spent time...

For years my family said my dad was a heart attack waiting to happen: he was in the chemical corps working with Agent Orange in Vietnam, he was a coal miner for 30+ years, he was a former smoker and drinker. In the fall of 2003 it finally happened, and unfortunately for my dad his youngest daughter (me) was free to come home and badger him. After working nearly every day for decades, my dad didn't quite know what to do with himself. After three years of being busy in law school neither did I, so we were quite the pair. I spent a few weeks in WV driving my dad nuts because I wouldn't let him eat whatever he wanted. My sister asked me to come visit her in Norfolk, Virginia, and I'm pretty sure Dad was happy to see me go. My sister and brother-in-law (with whom I'd grown up so he was like a brother long before he married my sister) were a great distraction for how lost I felt. They didn't have internet at their townhouse, so I would visit my sister at work (she is an e...