Well, the time had finally come to move my mother-in-law closer to us. Madalen is now 88 years old and still in good health but her memory is steadily decreasing which has given us reason to be concerned about her living an hour away from us. It has taken us over a year to work out all the details but she is now living just 10 minutes down the road from our house in a warm, safe, inviting Christian environment with loads of activities to fill her day.
After getting her settled in her new apartment we still had to close out her old house. Now you know what we did last weekend. Jeremy went along and helped us clean out her shed/garage and then loaded my car with the bins we had filled from the house. The guys did clown around and get the giggles (I think we were getting punchy by mid-afternoon) when Jeremy found a small flashlight with the words in
tiny print on it saying, "For help with blindness, call 1-800-***-9311"
Then it was time to move the big stuff..............like the golf cart. Don't you think Joel was really brave standing in front of Jeremy? Hmmmmm......just saying......
Ok, enough fun for one day! We headed home to unload and rest up for the next day. Now where in the world am I going to put all of this?
Thank goodness Jarrad and Dawn came down to help us Sunday or we would still be packing. Jarrad and I tackled the kitchen which worked great for me. His 6'6" frame made it easy to empty the top cupboards without a ladder and saved me from a lot of climbing up and down. The really heavy work for the day was loading the piano into Jarrad's trailer........the one without a ramp.........ummmmm, yea!
All 4 of us need a back adjustment now, know anyone who could do that for us? Ok, gotta keep on packing. Dawn had a great interest in the hundreds of books Madalen has collected over the years, especially the Christian reference books. She carefully spent hours choosing the ones she wanted and loaded them into their truck. Jarrad had pulled so many things from Grandma's kitchen cabinets that they almost didn't have room for the books! giggle....yes, Jarrad and I love to cook. Every time we emptied a cabinet one of us would say, "Oh, that's cool. I think I'll take that home." Yup, our cars were filled to capacity.
This is the pile of books that remained even after 2 pastors, myself, Dawn, and Madalen had taken all that we felt we could use. Wow, that's a lot of reference books. I wish I had room for all of them but since we downsized our house not too long ago, that wasn't going to happen.
Before we locked the door and drove back over the Skyway Bridge one last time, I took a moment to walk thru the rooms that Madalen had called home for 18 years. The rooms seemed tired when they were empty of all life from the one who used to live there. Does anyone else find it hard to end a chapter in their life? The bright side of this change is the wonderful new home where Madalen lives now.
The morning after she got moved in, we received a call from the assistant director. She wanted to reassure me that Madalen had eaten a great breakfast that morning. Mom had also gone to devotions with the ladies, played the organ for their hymn sing and was currently in exercise class. WHAT?!? In the 25 years I've known Madalen I've never known her to exercise. Yes, I think she's adjusting just fine.
Now, if I could just find a place for that last bin that's sitting in the middle of my foyer.
Debbie
