A friend of mine's boyfriend refers to it as my "68". I believe a famous hockey player described this as everyone has a "68". A life goal. When I described my dream job to Jason a few months ago, he said "Oh, its your 68". When we left Seattle that summer I told my mom, "When I grow up, I want to work at the Hutch School". I have thought about this job and dreamed of returning to live in Seattle for ELEVEN YEARS. This past December, after two years of crying tears and stressing about when I would actually do this, I made some phone calls, got an interview, and flew up to Seattle in January for it. The week of Easter, the week I was on Spring break with my sorority sisters, I got the phone call that I had gotten the job. I have never felt so weird in my life. I was excited but dumbfounded at the same time. And scared.
At eleven years old my father passed away from cancer. Now, I am 22, which means exactly 11 years later I am going back to Seattle, somewhat reliving a summer I've already experienced. BUT at 22, I have some other life goals that have been in motion over the past few years that give me even more reason to return to Seattle. My senior year of high school I had a teacher who spoke often about his wife who worked at Vanderbilt as a nurse in the pediatric oncology unit. After hearing a story about this nurse helping a sick, 16 year old girl string a necklace back together that was the last gift her mother gave to her before dying from breast cancer, I knew that's what I wanted to do with my life. Before that, I had wanted to be an orthodontist like my dad. I did not have a passion for that, however, and pediatric oncology nursing would give me a feeling of purpose and I felt I could give back in a way only someone in my situation could. I see this job at the Hutch School as one that will definitely help me with the psychological and counseling aspects of nursing, but it is also way more personal than that.
The January morning I left for Seattle to interview at the Hutch School, it took everything in me not to burst into tears in the ticket line at the airport. I was traveling with my mom and I was afraid being in Seattle would bring back memories in her that I as an 11 year old girl had not understood in 1997. So I asked her if she was going to be okay. She replied, "Yes, I have always wanted to go back to Seattle. You kids got to do a lot while we were there and I spent so much time in the hospital with your dad that I didn't get to see much". So, I went to the bathroom and tried to contain myself. Success.
When we got to Seattle late that night, everything seemed to be okay. I turned the radio on and some comforting Christian music was playing. The city looked so beautiful with all the lights. Everything seemed so bright and also familiar. And the Space Needle-- it may seem like a touristy thing, I don't know-- but to me, it was a welcoming sight to see.
After the interview at the Hutch School that week, I called my mom and friends immediately and gushed about how much I loved that job and wanted that job and how it would be perfect and amazing. I had wanted it for so long and I did not know what it would be like if I did not get it. What was the point of this idea being on my mind constantly for 11 years if I could not work there?
Days earlier, I had been discussing the idea of going back to Seattle with some friends and my mom and someone said to me, "Maybe you just need to get it out of your system". My heart sunk when I heard that. I had never, ever thought of that. I had built up going back to Seattle for so long because I wanted to work out there and possibly move out there after college, and now this idea of taking a short trip to Seattle, interviewing, and sightseeing was supposed to satisfy eleven years of daydreaming? Thankfully, I didn't give up.
I leave in about 2 and a half days. I keep saying I'm scared because when I think about it, I am. But what I am feeling-- I don't feel scared. I don't feel overwhelmingly excited either. But the idea of it and imagining it looks so awesome in my head. I just don't have that physical feeling in my nerves yet.
I feel like this entry has been all over the place. There's such a story to all this and I have so much I would like to and could share. I jotted down a few ideas I have been pondering over the past few weeks and mostly, I want to say this:
When I interviewed at the Hutch School in January, my boss shared with me that she, too, had lost her father to cancer and she liked the idea that I could give back and come "full circle" in order to do that. The other day when talking to one of my best friend's mom, Mitzi, she also used those words, "full circle". I am not sure how I will give back, but I know its something I have always wanted to do. Also, when I think about Seattle and Nashville on a map of the United States, they are totally opposite. Nashville, southeast. Seattle, northwest. And it makes me think of my high school english class where we read into symbols of east and west and how east represented new life and birth, where the sun rose, and west represented death, where the sun set. So, Nashville represents life and Seattle represents death? Kind of. Bear with me. It reminds me of a story my mom has told many, many times. Something about her and my dad camping in the Fall and she said something while looking at all the bright-colored leaves like, "Isn't it weird to think that all these leaves are so beautiful and yet they're dying?" And my dad replied, "Death is beautiful". When I was eleven and we were heading out to Seattle, I thought of my dad as a Christ-like figure. He was taking the chance to have treatment done that could give him a longer life with us, his family. If it did not work, he would die. He could have opted for medicine-free time that may have lasted a year or maybe more, I am not sure. But he chose something that gave him 2 months. He risked his life in order to spend it with us or to have God's will be done. He trusted in God's will. So, yeah, we left the place we lived to go to a place where my father died. Now, I am going to a place where my father died and I am going to live there. I will be LIVING out there. And while things could get me down, I am going to remember the last words written in my dad's journal: Life is good.
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