End of a Chapter, But Not the Book

I've shared here the experience we've had with moving my parents to an apartment. The next installment of the story is the selling of their house, which is finally happening. Actually, given the market in their town, where a Navy base was recently closed, resulting in a lot of available housing in the area, we were fortunate to sell it in 6 months. The closing is tomorrow.

The emptying of the house has seemed endless. Besides all of the house stuff, there was my father's workshop and office and storage areas in the basement and a garage full of odds and ends. We actually didn't completely empty it -- rationalizing that some of the odds and ends we were leaving could be "useful" to the new owner (like the shelf unit with leftover cans of paint from the house doors and trim), the big folding table hanging on the garage wall, and the hedge trimmer.

Don and I paid our last visit to the house last Saturday. It was partly to retrieve just a few more things (a garden cart/wheelbarrow, a half-dozen boxes of various-sized trash bags, the wooden support for the birdbath which I should have taken last fall but which was frozen into the lawn all winter, an electric drill I don't think any of us had seen hanging on the end of the storage cupboards in the workshop, etc. Mostly, though, I think it was to say good-bye.

In a conversation with my parents after the visit, my Mom asked me if I felt sad. I said, "of course - we had a lot of fun times there!" Luckily that satisfied her and I didn't have to admit the sobbing crying jag I had while there. I couldn't have told her that I was really crying about how my parents are less and less able to take care of themselves, let alone a house. Or that I was crying for my own future elderliness.

So, the house chapter closes. The house is gone. There is now no one in my family living in the community where I grew up. The only thing left is a plaque honoring my father on the wall of the school where he was principal for many years and a handful of people who knew any of us.

But, the book is not finished, thanks to a large, extended family who is still close (not necessarily close by, but close). Many of us will be gathering for my father's birthday next week. My siblings are all talking this week about how to help my mother make efforts to be a bit healthier. We've got graduations to celebrate in two months, and anniversaries, and more birthdays, and an all-sibling camping trip planned for August. We'll keep writing memories.

And, of course, I'll keep knitting!