Comings and Goings

Writing about the midnight shift, I probably called a spirit of chaos back into the air and unknowingly, I put us in a deja vu situation, and now I am left in a state of all things melancholy.
Roc got a call from a Sergeant yesterday afternoon asking him to cover a security detail at 1PP. For those of you who might be unfamiliar, One Police Plaza is the NYPD's main command post in NYC. It's located in downtown Manhattan, and you've probably seen it depicted in a slew of movies and TV shows. Sometimes they pull cops from the boroughs to cover at 1PP. It's generally not a difficult detail, the hardest part being that you need to stay awake and alert from 8P-8A.
So I slept alone last night...shades of an old schedule.
Then I woke up way too early in order to drive my father to the airport. Dad decided that he's unable to stick around for Thanksgiving; my brother and I don't blame him. He's going to visit my StepMom's best friend and her family in sunny California. On the way to the airport, he expressed how hard it was to travel without her. He misses her so much, it's palpable, and it was all I could do to hold back my tears as I dropped him off to check-in alone.
Since my grandmother's house is on the way back from the airport, I decided to stop there before I came home. My Gram is suffering horribly from Alzheimer's, and every time I stop to visit, it is a gut-wrenching experience that stays with me for hours on end. She is one of my most favorite people, and this time of year is especially ripe with memories of how she made the Holidays special. Now she is relegated to her bed, her mind locked away, her spirit somewhere behind the eyes.
It's been a day and a half, and this day's just begun.