Back home

Home. Where is it? What is it? Why is it? When is it? (and soon how much is it!!) I've blogged about it before, that elusive home. Not even two months ago when I last thought about it.

Judy's daughter is spending the week. Those two are so close and I do not know which one has been more longing to see the other. I'm supposed to be out of town two days this week. So in the interest of privacy and space I moved back over to dad's house for the week. Saturday night was my first.

Been two months almost since I lived here. On October 6th, the first Saturday at Judy's house, I blogged "It doesn't feel like home yet here. But it no longer feels like home over at 'the house' either."

It feels really strange to be here this time. It is nearly unbearably lonely to be away from Judy. How quickly I've become attached to her.

Dad's room is still where I left it, not that it could have moved. The lights are on still because I've never turned them off. There's an empty spot where the bed was. His real bed is still packed away down in the freezer room. It nearly killed me when I had to take it down and put up the hospital bed. One of the many times I felt like a traitor. Not that I showed it or doubted my decision but feelings are unavoidable. The other furniture is haphazardly placed here and there also just as it was the night he died. The door is ajar, too. But the room is empty and there are no sounds for me to hear.

Every time I come to my room I glance at his door. I try to make myself not look but I always do. I resist the deep down emotion to think that my dad is gone. But it's there all the same.

Nine years ago it was, just before Thanksgiving, that I came here again. I left in 1968 in August to begin married life. I returned once in 1994 but only for a short while after my divorce. Kind of like the marriage was a parentheses is how I felt at the time. I wrote a poem then but I can't find it now. My poetry stage! Long before all that I was the first to move into the house. I think that was in 1964. Dad built it and I'll tear it down.

Parentheses. I hadn't thought about that imagery about my caregiving. But kind of another parentheses wrapped around the whole nine years is how I feel about it right now. If it's like the marriage then that's the way I'll feel for a while yet longer.

Watched a Hallmark movie last night about a lady who begins showing symptoms of Alzheimer's. Made me so sad. The story wasn't really about Alzheimer's. AD was just incidental to the plot. That didn't make me feel better. I should have stopped watching and found something else but I made it all the way to the end. That's my way. Don't give up. Just like with real life. And ended with a spasm of grief and tears although that's not real life for me.

Today I will be at another house for an inspection. Seldom do I see such pivotal events in life where behind lies the past and ahead so clearly the future.