.... it's complicated .......

Must admit that today has been a  bit of a tough day ..... as it always is when I know my time is drawing to close when I visit home.   I spent the day getting things done that I knew needed to be done before I left .... fixed the falling ceiling tiles ....got Foster's steps done ..... cleaned up the garage and the yard a little bit .... did some touch up painting ..... took delivery of Mom's new fridge ....  and then it was time to think about packing for the next leg of the trip.   I got to have dinner with my sister Mimi, her daughter Ashley and Ashley's daughter Lily.  (Okay, Lily is only 6 months old, so technically she didn't eat dinner but she was there!).   Girls Night "In"!!

My sister Mimi lives here in the same town as my mom and is just 16 months older than I am.   We are not necessarily a family that talks all that often but I have always been so thankful that she is here for my Mom - and for my Dad when he was alive. I feel like she shoulders a bit more of the load for that and I am not sure I thank her often enough for everything she does.  Thanks Mimi!  I know it means a lot to Mom to have you near and I think sometimes you are the glue that holds us together.

Today feels a bit like it was a "back in time" day.  This afternoon while my mom napped I went to a local antique store that I had never been in.  Big mistake!!  I love you Brad and I will be coming home with a new small piece of furniture!!  When it suddenly dawned on me that I have a truck this time around, I couldn't resist!  I found a beautiful, well built seat that is one of those telephone benches - the kind where it has a  place to sit and a small table part built in that people used to put their telephones on.  It was so reasonably priced that it was ridiculous, so it's now taking up residence in the backseat of my vehicle!

There were also a few things in the garage that were being saved for me so I loaded those as well.   The garage was my Dad's terrain.  He was a Lutheran minister by trade but at heart he was a handyman/woodworker.   He spent too many hours to count in that small garage, working with his table saw or router or scroll saw or a myriad of other tools that he had.   Some were downright frightening - pretty sure he made his own scroll saw and most of the extenstion cords I have ever found around here are definitely homemade!  He was a salvager before it was cool.  Not sure he was thinking so much of the environment but rather his pocket book, but perhaps that's where I get my love of dumpster diving and re-purposing things .... as well as my love of using my hands and owning all the power tools!

My Dad died 6 years ago on Halloween.   Our relationship was not always good, in fact in the later years it was rather complicated.   I won't get into any of that here, but I feel like in one sense I made as much peace with him as I could during the time he was under Hospice care and I would come for two weeks at a time to help care for him.  Brad used to tell me that people died the way they lived and I believe that to be true now.  I wanted something more, but he was who he was.  The older I get, the more I understand about trials and tribulations and that we all have weaknesses, but I have to believe that the core of who we are, the true essence of who we are when we are held accountable in the end is what really matters.   At least that is my hope as I weave my way throughout my own life and that when my final days come, that my sons will be proud to have had me as their mother.

I am not much for cemeteries. I don't really believe that they hold much other than remains and a place for people to go to grieve and miss those they loved.  I realized on my first days of this trip that I had been to my father's gravesite only once since his funeral.   Perhaps that realization meant that it was time to go again and try to resolve anything that felt left undone.  So this afternoon I went.  I knew where the cemetery was and thought I knew where the site was, but after wandering aimlessly for a while I realized I had no clue and was overcome with a great sadness and the tears followed.   I guess I felt like it was a bit of a sad statement of me as a daughter that I couldn't even find my own father's gravesite.  Or perhaps it was a sad statement of the relationship that we had.   So I called my sister and she told me where to find it.  I found it, I swept the grass clippings off of it and said the things I felt like I needed to say - some of them outloud and some to myself, but they have been said.   And then I pulled myself together, got in the truck and headed to Mom's and started to pack.

It's a funny time in life, when you are beginning to feel the pull of time....

The song I chose for today is by an artist named Warren Zevon.  He died in September 2003 of cancer, the same disease that took my father in 2004.   During his final months he recorded an album, knowing that his time was drawing to a close.   One of those songs was "Keep Me in Your Heart".  If you have ever listened to Warren Zevon before and you listen to this song, you can hear the disease is taking it's toll.  This song has always made me think of my Dad.