Apologies for being AWOL.

And thanks for checking in to see if Everybody's Business still has a pulse. You know I've been dealing with some absorbing matters on the domestic front. I'm pleased to say Ontario's health system has treated Mom extraordinarily well, as it did my Dad before his passing June 24. I've been unplugged from the wider world, mostly in securing Mom safe harbor at a nursing home, no longer alone in my parents' home of 57 years. Which, my parents' being packrats, has also been a challenge as it's prepared for sale.

I wouldn't be getting all personal except to impart a bit of an unanticipated revelation for me in this process. I dreaded the day of "unpacking" that house. But as I inspect each box, bag, repurposed coffee and cookie tin to ensure no letters or photos are inadvertently dispatched to the Dumpster, I've learned more about my parents in the past two weeks than what knowledge I gained of their values and quirks over my previous 52 years. Moments of pride, frustration, compassion, anxiety are laid out in correspondence to and from all manner of folks - relatives, of course, and neighbours, MPPs, contractors. Patterns form, naturally, as I go through the photos, especially. Mom and Dad were far more affectionate on the road than in my presence; I developed quite the wrong impression from the dinner-table bickering.

There's more, but I just want to thank you for your patience. And if you have the trepedation I had about that necessary house-cleaning task on the far horizon, you too might find it has moments of delightful surprise. And wisdom.

Comments

[Doug]

Had the same experience with both my own mother's home, and that of my wife's mother. It's like an archeological dig.

[dolive]

I'm tempted to recall the Consolidated Edison street signs in New York, "Dig we must!" It is a treasure trove, you're right. And too much to ask that over 57 years all the photos would be in one place, the correspondence in another...What I'm finding is an envelope ostensibly stuffed with outdated coupons, and buried in there is the deed to the house or a letter, never sent, explaining why Mom never got along with Neighbor X. I hope you had some assistance with your mother-in-law's home. Cheers, David