2,102 Miles

Jenna and Mike have moved to Victoria B.C.

Consequently she is 2,102 miles away. Or, looking at it another way, she is 1,826 Nautical miles away. And seeing it yet in still another way, she is 3,382 Kilometres away.

I looked it up.

If I didn't stop to eat or sleep, she would be 26½ hours away by car. If I did stop, she would be closer to 36 hours down the road. If I could secure a direct flight, she would be 2¾ hours away by plane, but when I include the 3½ hours it typically takes to change planes in Calgary she’s more than 6 ¼ hours away, plus another half hour by taxi cab at the end of the flight, just to add insult to injury. On horseback, it would take me at least three weeks to get to her, and on foot, I wouldn’t see her for three months.

No matter how I look at it – she’s just too goddamn far away.

The phone helps a little. The Internet helps a little more. But because of the interposing time zones, there’s a difference of three hours between my clock and hers, so timing our conversations can be a problem. Even the sunrise takes three hours to get from here to there…

I’m not used to thinking in terms of hours, or days, or weeks, or months. I’m used to being able to see her in about 20 minutes. And when we lived in the same building, I could be down the stairs in less than 30 seconds. Hell, she could hear me walking around in my kitchen and I could listen to what she was watching on television.

The other night we were talking over the Internet, using our web cams and sharing a virtual drink with one another. It was almost the same as when we used to get together after work and neither of us had plans for the evening. Of course, she got a little tipsy as the time passed, but it was good to see her relaxing in her new apartment with her new husband sleeping just down the hall and her new life waiting for her just outside her door.

As we talked, she challenged my perceptions a little, just like old times. And, in part, because she enjoys playing the role of the “unrepentant daughter” taxing the patience of her “overly protective father”, but mostly because she simply knows exactly what buttons to push, she decided to tease me a little and, again, it was just like old times. She made me smile a little and, from time to time, she even made me laugh a little. But mostly she just made me wish that she was here, or that I was there.

And afterwards, as I lay in my bed watching the lights from the occasional passing car play across the ceiling of my bedroom, throwing every imperfection in the plaster into high relief, I found myself thinking about how much my niece really means to me. Not just in terms of the fact that we are related by blood and share a common history, but also in terms if the fact that while she was busy growing up, I was busy growing old, and during that process we were companions, each to the other. And now, having to accommodate the bleak reality that 2,102 miles of obsidian highway separates us, each from the other, breaks my heart, at least a little.