2000

One thing I worried about was Jack using the men’s room without anyone else to go with him. I suppose I was on heightened “Mother Duck Alert”.  We had a system where he would go in and I would be close to the exit listening for him.  I even gave him pepper spray in a hip pack, in case he needed it. Yes, I was wound up but I felt vulnerable and fragile and needed to know he was safe.  Navigating this life without a husband was tough stuff.

There was incredible hype over the Y2K New Year.  I planned to be back in Virginia before New Year’s Eve.  We spent the next two days enjoying the park, the rides, and the sights but we were tired and longed to be at home. 

We returned exhausted from our trip.  A few days of distraction were enough for us.  The flight back was uneventful and my brother, Mike, met us at the airport to take us home.  We planned that he would stay with us for New Year’s Eve.

The media deluge of possible chain reactions caused by the Y2Kat the strike of midnight was tremendous.  It was a scary night or at least it was to me.  The boys and I stayed up and watched the ball drop on Times Square, then I put them to bed.  At midnight, I was kissing my two babies instead of my husband, but we were okay.

It was difficult to sleep with the worry, but the sun came up just the way it had on all the other days before it.  The news reported several computer glitches around the world, but the sky had not fallen.  The world had survived the Y2K dilemma!

I was preparing to go back to school.  I spent the day getting all of us ready to return.  It was the worst of vacations, but I had survived.  I knew it would never be quite as painful as this one.  Steve would sometimes tell me to just go with it, rather than try to fight the pain and sadness.  No matter which day or how bad I felt, I could always count on the fact that tomorrow might seem a little brighter.