Waiting on a Rock

Charles here-

I remember that day when they first called with the referral vividly. We were in a restaurant called the Metro Cafe just south of Central Park in New York. We weren't expecting it then. We were out of town and working. Actually I was really excited about spending our last few hours in the city at the MOMA. We had a plane to catch in about four hours. Then my phone rang and we had just sat down to our sandwiches. It was a number I didn't recognize so I usually don't answer those. Amy says "Just answer it" and well I did. It was THE call and she said "are you somewhere I can talk to both of you?" I said it was too noisy but I would call right back. She said "I won't call anyone else. I will wait for the call." This would be the first time she lied to me and this was the first time I had actually talked to her on the phone.

I trusted what she said and we hurried over to the Park where we could be alone on speaker and it was quiet. A pretty tall order in the city. Oh yeah, and it was 15 degrees that day! So I called her... got the voicemail. Left a message, and then waited a few minutes. We were sitting on one of those huge rocks just inside the park trying to stay warm in the sun. She said she would wait right? Called again... nothing. Half an hour passes that feels like hours and I call the main number. The receptionist says she is on the phone with another family. What's that? Another family! But she said she would wait for us?! Okay, I said "tell her to call us, we are out of town and not near a good phone." "Okay, I'll tell her," she says. I think we were up there about an hour on that cold rock by ourselves.

The sun had started to move and it was getting colder. We called one last time, and nothing. "Sorry she's still on the phone" says the receptionist. Another message gets left on the voicemail... So we leave and head for some place warm. We are hurriedly searching. We try the Borders in the Columbus Circle Mall but it's too noisy for me. I don't know how this conversation is going to go at this point. I need some space. So we head up and up escalators inside until we find an empty hallway overlooking it all. We start looking for a place to sit and then the phone rings.

Huddled together on the floor, near a railing, we must look like we are planting a bomb. We strain to listen to the details, not that there are many, and she asks what we think and says that the packet is to be mailed to us. "Oh you're out of town" she says? How soon they forget. So after two hours of waiting on a call that should have happened right then, we finally got the news. Of course we didn't get all the details and soon after, we realized that our two month wait to travel was increased to four.

It's like that onion peeling, and the layers just reveal more and more changes in the game. So when people ask how I feel about it. I think, I'm still on that rock. Still waiting to hear the whole story. Still waiting to hear all of the details. Still waiting for somebody at that agency to do what they said they would do. It's cold on that rock and I'm tired of waiting. I'm ready to come home as a family where its warm and I don't have to wait on anything else. Control, just a little control over our fate. That's all we want. Not a bunch of, this could happen, or this might happen, or even - be flexible. Flexible? That little girl in the picture on my desk doesn't understand that, and at this point, neither do I.