Here is Lyndie’s own written account of the ordeal:
It was going to be our last great adventure together. We’ve been friends for nearly 50 years, both of us now widowed after long marriages. I have traveled often with Graciana (not her real name; that’s the one she has chosen for herself here)–in cramped spaces, in faraway places, on a tight budget. For one last journey together, we decided to splurge.
Last year, we booked a Viking River Cruise along the Danube, through a part of Europe neither of us had ever visited. This consumed most of my meager savings, but I didn’t care. It would be a magnificent memory for both of us.
My job was to serve as Graciana’s Seeing Eye Sister, because she is blind from glaucoma. She is a gifted writer and poet–wise and intuitive, a person who “sees” better than many of us “sighted” folks. On the journey, I would be her avoider of obstacles, menu-reader, money manager, describer of sights and scenery. Her job was to pray I would not lead us too far astray.
Our adventure began to go wrong from the start. On the flight to Budapest, Graciana barely complained, but I knew she was uncomfortable from her arthritis and back pain, exacerbated by motion sickness. I worried because she drank so little water and (despite taking Demerol) hardly slept.
The crowded bus ride from the airport to the Budapest hotel seemed endless, as she became even more ill from motion sickness. When nausea overcame her, we had to use my few handkerchiefs to clean up.
I hoped Graciana would rest and recover after we settled exhausted into our hotel room. But she only got worse, with uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea. We used up every towel. She got no sleep. Overruling her objections, I decided to send for medical help, and a very nice English-speaking Hungarian doctor arrived. After examining her and hooking her up to an IV, he rang for an ambulance.
When it arrived after two long hours, the EMTs insisted that, not being a relative, I could not accompany my friend to the hospital. I insisted that I must. God bless the doctor for intervening.
The ER was frightfully crowded with rows of gurneys bearing others in various states of medical crisis. As the nurses and EMTs moved about, apologetic and overwhelmed, Graciana lay patiently waiting to be seen. After a time her IV line got detached accidentally, and she began to bleed profusely. Speaking not a word of Hungarian, I waylaid a passing nurse, gesticulating frantically, and Graciana was wheeled inside.
I tried, vainly, not to worry as the hours passed. Friendly strangers – Hungarian, Tunisian, Sudanese – kept me distracted, showing me their wounds, communicating in what English they had. Knowing that most Hungarians are Catholic, I went to the women lying on the gurneys, made the sign of the cross on their foreheads, and blessed them. Relating to those wounded and frightened women took me out of my deep fears and distracted me from my thoughts. (“Oh my God what am I going to do if she dies?”)
Some time after midnight Graciana was released—wan and weak, but alive. The doctor told me she had nearly died of dehydration and other issues, which he left unexplained.
Instead of touring Budapest together like others on the cruise, we spent two days waiting in the hotel as I pushed fluids on Graciana, who ate almost nothing. At her gentle urging, I did join a tour of the Great Budapest Synagogue, which miraculously survived the Nazis.
With help of Demerol, Graciana survived the bus ride to the cruise ship. Holding on to one another for dear life, we boarded the ship and found our stateroom with its lovely view of the river, Graciana sank gratefully onto her bed, where she would spend most of the voyage.
The doctor had forbidden her to leave the ship. As we floated through Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Romania, she mostly rested in bed and slept, still quite weak. I brought her food, coffee, juice, snacks, from the dining room, which she barely ate. When I saw how much she relished the various excellent soups, I began making “soup runs” for her.
We spent most of the voyage in our room, enjoying the breeze from the river. I described the passing scenery, birds (swans!), and other boats. Sometimes I read to her from books she had written. We spent an absurd amount of time looking for things she’d lost, dropped or misplaced: Money, medications, tickets.
On rare occasions, she summoned enough strength to join me in the dining room, where she enjoyed meeting the other passengers. One day I helped her to the top deck so she could savor the fragrance of the herb garden, walk a little, and enjoy the sun.
Towards the end of our journey, Graciana defied doctor’s orders and accompanied me on a tour of a Bulgarian family farm, where I watched and she listened to a cooking demonstration. We walked among organic vegetable beds and an orchard, holding each other up and stopping often to rest. We chose Bulgarian handcrafts to bring to our grandchildren.
At her insistence, alone, I also enjoyed just one of the other excursions that are offered every day during the cruise: A tour of Belgrade, Serbia. I joined others on the cruise as we trekked the ancient, pre-Ottoman fortress that looms over the city and stopped at a delightful coffee shop. A kind couple from Taiwan noticed and rescued me when I began to limp and fall behind.
I felt sad that Graciana had to miss so much of our adventure, but she rarely complained. That said, she really didn’t take good care of herself, and at times it felt like she had given up the will to live. Mostly, I had to urge her to eat and drink.
Although I’ve been her friend for years, I never had to take care of her or any other blind person, and I had to figure things out that I’ve never thought about before. I felt like I owed it to her, to her family, to God, and to myself to be a true sister to her.
Lyndie would insist that the trip was a good experience, because she made friends on the boat — most memorably, the staff who cleaned the room and a kindly couple who helped her during the only off-board excursion she was able to take alone. (She had run out of energy during a walking tour of Belgrade, Serbia.)
She did recall another memorable encounter, in an email to me sent in May 2024:
“Pacing along the top deck of our vessel, moored inches away from another cruise ship, I spotted a gentleman about my age, also walking. Noticing a trash barrel labeled ‘saub-something’, I realized it referenced “clean” like my Jewish grandparents’ name (Sauber) and boldly called out, “Deutschen?” He brightened and cheerfully greeted me in return.
“In my clumsy English with guessed-at pidgin German, asked where he was from. Dresden! I shared my memory of horrific newsreel footage in 1945 of the fire-bombing of his city, breaking into tears as I spoke. It turns out his parents died during the bombing (his broken English eloquent, also his tears).
“We held hands over the the two inches that separated us, and our hearts met, and shared grief–two five year-olds once more. (How could I really know??) We hoped together for world peace, as the world continued to crumble a few miles away in Ukraine, in the Holy Land, Sudan, Yemen. etc. Perhaps the most poignant encounter of my Viking journey. Hard to forget.”
Since their return from the cruise, Lyndie wrote, her friend (not surprisingly) has vowed never to travel again. But once the possibility arose, Lyndie began to dream about reliving the experience in full.
“I treasure the thought of meeting some of the people who live along the Danube…” she wrote, “and having a chance to learn about their world, up close and personal. I want to walk back into the life of Eastern Europe, to hear people’s stories and learn what they have to say about living yet again under the threat of tyranny, after centuries of invasion and conflict in their troubled part of the world.
“This was the place I chose for my last great adventure, and I still hope to experience it.”