Our 2003 Misadventure

The Trip We Never Made (And the Detour That Changed Everything)

It's strange how a single map coordinate can hold a permanent place in your heart, even if you have never actually set foot there. For two decades, Bath, Maine, was that place for me... a destination that came to symbolize the exact moment my life split into "before" and "after."

Back in June 2003, Kristan and I were supposed to meet up for a two-week holiday at my cousin's family's coastal Maine cottage. We planned a scenic route, first driving our rental car through Vermont to Blue Mountain Lake in upper New York so Kristan could show me a beautiful place where she had made wonderful memories.

But the moment we landed at Boston Logan airport, our plans began to unravel. Kristan had a small, benign foot wound on her heel that she and her doctor had been closely watching. Even inside her protective boot, it looked angry and inflamed. It was our first introduction to what would become a long, grueling history of serious diabetes-related infections over the subsequent years. Because I was completely unfamiliar with a loved one developing an acute medical crisis, I found myself paralyzed, unable to make good decisions.

Kristan desperately wanted me to see the lake and the gorgeous house on the island where she had stayed. Because driving is something I love to do, she convinced me to keep going. We continued our long drive to our rustic cabin on the shoreline of Blue Mountain Lake.

By the next morning, the wound looked so much worse that I finally asserted myself. We sought help at a local health center in Indian Lake, and they immediately advised us to head to the nearest major hospital in Glens Falls. The emergency team admitted her on the spot for intravenous antibiotics and a grueling debridement surgery. The procedure removed necrotic tissue all the way to the bone. Suddenly, our summer vacation was replaced by a three-week hospital stay.

The day after Kristan was admitted, I left a message for my younger sister Mikele. She was down in New York City with her family, taking tours and getting ready to drive up to Maine. The moment they got the news, they dropped everything. They drove straight up to Glens Falls and spent two or three days with us, visiting Kristan in her hospital room. Mikele knew I was overwhelmed and convinced me to take a brief break, driving with them down to Highland Falls—the town where our Mom grew up, and where Mikele, Mom, and I had spent a month together after a stressful relocation trip around the world back in 1966.

While we were there, we visited our cousin Chris' husband, Michael. He is a passionate history buff who gave us tours of the local area, including the West Point cemetery where so many famous military figures are laid to rest. We also visited the Highland Falls cemetery, standing together by the resting place of our Mom, who had died far too soon at age 60 in 1981. That short, nostalgic detour with family was exactly what I needed to ground myself.

When they departed, I returned to the reality of the hospital. While Kristan slowly recovered and doctors struggled to stabilize her blood sugar, I spent my remaining days hovering in her room, running errands, and exploring the unfamiliar local area. At first, I slept at The Queensbury Hotel, a historic—and incredibly expensive—local landmark. Eventually, empathetic hospital staff directed me to Amanda's House, a delightful lodging house dedicated specifically to families traveling with hospitalized loved ones.

That medical fiasco took over our lives for the better part of two months. My corporate life and my caregiving life collided in bizarre ways. When my Director at work asked how he could help, I half-jokingly asked if he could get a corporate Lockheed Martin jet to pick us up from a small local airport I had scouted out, sparing me the stress of driving an unstable patient back to Boston Logan. To my shock, he actually got approval for it—a logistical feat that caught the attention of the CEO, who came to know me personally because of it.

But our luck ran out on July 8, when a horrific workplace shooting took place at a Lockheed Martin facility in Mississippi. Instantly, the corporate fleet was grounded to transport the families of the victims. My director, still determined to help us, managed to pivot and bought us tickets to fly home out of Albany instead of Boston, saving me hours of agonizing driving.

Before we could leave, the Fourth of July arrived. We celebrated from the confines of her sterile hospital room. We looked out the window at a few meagre, distant fireworks bursting over the New York skyline. Wanting something grander for her, I pulled out my Sony VAIO laptop, dialed into the internet, and found live video streams of massive fireworks shows happening across the United States. We sat there in the dark, watching the digital sparks fly.

Kristan's health went medically downhill over subsequent years, and we never made it to Bath together. It wasn't until 20 years later that my partner Jennefer and I finally made our first trip out to that coastal town to meet up with the same family crowd. The peaceful, beautiful waterfront location completely captivated us. Standing there, watching the local lobster boats, looking out past Cundy Harbor, and checking on a nearby Osprey nest, I finally found a sense of closure. It took a long time to get there, but looking out at the water, I couldn't help but reflect on the detour that changed the course of my life so many years before.