New Beginnings

My mother is now comfortably, albeit not (yet) neatly, ensconced in her cute new townhome. She's a city gal now, the term "city" used loosely as she still lives, by my definition, in the middle of nowheresville Virginia.

The family manse, her previous home, is vacant, the rooms loudly echo even the softest footsteps on the hardwood floors. It's amazing how different a place looks with no furnishings. However I can recall what was displayed in the spots identified only by holes in the walls now carefully spackled. The house may appear empty, but the memories will always be there, unobtrusive and visible only to those who can and wish to remember, wafting about like Casper the Friendly Ghost offering comfort in a world that changes whether we are ready or not.

Yes, that chapter is closed and a new one begun. Fresh ink. She adores her new abode, with good friends a few doors down in both directions. Her old next-door neighbors are still her neighbors, just not quite next-door. That's right. When she told them she was moving, they decided they would move too, to the only other unit for sale in the quiet little enclave in which she now resides.

We celebrated her 70th birthday on the day of her move. I refuse to acknowledge that her husband died just nine short days following his 70th birthday. My mother is too stubborn an old bird to ever consider such nonsense. Her plan is to drop dead in her kitchen when she is 87, following the examples set by her own mother as well as her late husband's mother. Eh. Sounds like a good enough way to go, I guess.

Her birthday was also the two year anniversary of this here blog. When I consider how life has changed over those two years, I waffle between excited anticipation of the future and raw, abject terror. It's bound to be interesting, whatever it brings.

There ain't no load that I can't hold
Road so rough this I know
I'll be there when the light comes in
Just tell 'em we're survivors

Life is a highway
I wanna ride it all night long

---Tom Cochran

.