remarriage of widowed people

Goodbye


Trusty Uhaul Truck

Image by Open Wheel via Flickr

The last tote was strapped to the topper of the Avalanche at about 7PM this evening. My best friend, Vicki, arrived with her youngest daughter and helped Rob and I load up the remaining items to be sold (or given away) into her van. The house was empty of everything but the few pieces of furniture that will go to my “niece” to furnish her new apartment next month. It was time to leave.

 

 

 

Time to say goodbye.

 

I went through the house alone. I had to close the garage door and leave the opener on the counter for the new owners. There were two openers. I think the other got packed. Next time we are hiring this packing crap done.

 

The last time the house was this empty was the day we moved in. Fours years ago in exactly two months from today. Four years ago. Katy was eleven months old. I was packing another house. Will was dying.

I can’t say that I will miss the house. I have said already it has few memories that one could call happy, and it was my prison for a long time. Still, it hurt to say goodbye. And it was silly really because like the hospice and the cemetery, Will was not there. I could hear him admonish me in a tone of voice that ranged somewhere between patience and exasperation, reminding me.

 

Outside and heading towards the truck and U-Haul with tears still streaming, Rob met me with an already sweat soggy shoulder and a strong, comforting embrace. Everything was still as it was a moment earlier and yet everything was all right as well.

 

Goodbye house. Goodbye Des Moines. But not goodbye to Will. After all, like Elvis, he had already left the building.

Moving: The Sage Continues



Have I mentioned how much I hate packing? I can’t imagine that I haven’t. I have been packing and purging and then re-purging and repacking for….ever now and there is still stuff in the house. How can this be? Early American pioneers traveled thousands of miles with a couple of covered wagons and they took nearly everything they owned and I am not taking any furniture other than my daughter’s bed, her dad’s recliner and a television, and there is still too much stuff! 

I am going on an acquisition diet. I have packed only about twenty hangers. That is all the clothing I am allowed for the closet anymore. Any new clothing purchases will come at the donation expense of existing items. Pruned the shoes down to about 8 pair (and just as an aside, I hate shoe shopping and owned probably only about 6 pair more than I am keeping). I have decided that keeping “fat” clothes is more effort than simply exercising and eating properly. And it takes up more space. It is cheaper to buy extra storage at .Mac than to keep paper and photos. And, the crown jewel of my newly organized leaf is that I am not going to allow papers to pile up. How? I have a few ideas, but suffice to say that the next move (in a year…..good god) will not be this painful (for me anyway as it will be Rob’s house we will be sorting and packing).

Six more days and then we will finally be home. To unpacking. Sorting. Rearranging. Large flesh-eating mosquitoes. On-going renovations and a few new ones. But home. It’s where the heart is,  you know.

Newlyweds


Back in my early days on the YWBB, I corresponded and posted  back and forth a bit with a man from New Hampshire. His wife had died after a a long bout with cancer about 5 months after Will died. He was one of the first posters I ran across who subscribed to the theory that it was possible to have loved your spouse, grieve for your spouse and still want to forge ahead and build a new life…..maybe even with someone else. 

Bob caused quite the stir on the board at the end of the year when he revealed that he had met and was dating a widow he met at a bago in Boston. Though dating through the board and hooking up at bago’s is officially verboten at the YWBB, the truth is that it happens a lot more than most people would care to admit. People meet like Rob and I did through PM’s and email and progress from there. They meet at bago’s. They meet in chat. It happens. It’s just a man/woman thing that nothing gets in the way of when it is meant to be.

Bob and his lady friend, Shel, disappeared from the board not long after the first of the year. I suspected that they were too busy living and being together and building a new life to have time for the board. Today Bob reappeared to announce that he and Shel were married on the first of this month. Although I could be wrong, it is an announcement that will be met with a tepid response at best. Most of the people on the board are too mired to offer congratulations to someone else’s happiness. 

I wish Bob and Shel the best.