Admittedly maudlin musings on going home
Going home to the house that welcomed me as a baby fresh from the womb, as a girl in tights with holes at the knee, as a door-slamming teen.
Home to the house that held my name in wooden letters on the wall of a room that would be mine until I no longer needed my name to claim it.
The house of my parents; now home to just one parent.
Moving Dad out of our house to a memory care home, the hardest decision Mom has had to make. Hard for us to have her make it.
And yet.
Dad’s new home has more interest for him, more people to say his name. More (bigger, stronger) people to help him stand on wobbly knees. He is awake more hours of the day, is able to make more people smile.
“You have obviously had a beautiful life together” the chef tells my mother, as she visits daily. Dad is well cared for, mom less stressed. She doesn’t constantly worry about how a smallish woman in her eighties will lift a physically strong man off the floor, out of a chair, into a bed.
We, the children visit. Visit the house filled with my father’s life’s work, our rooms now converted. Visit our mom, cook and fix things. We visit Dad in his home where we show him photos, take and share selfies, talk, play with a ball, walk, enjoy his smile and laughter.
Everything is not as we might have wished, but we’re pretty lucky still.
