Home Again, Home Again

The weather in Fayetteville was gorgeous, highs in the eighties and clear skies almost all the time. In addition to working on Danielle’s house, I also took a two mile walk almost every day. Lost a few pounds and got some sun.

We also looked at some houses in that zip code and in a neighboring county. There are some incredibly beautiful homes in Spring Lake, the town where Danielle lives; way out of our price range of course but very nice. Her neighborhood is extremely well kept, the lots are large (she bought a ranch on a 3/4 acre plot), there are no cookie-cutter homes and the people are very friendly. I met a few of them on my walks; friendly Southern folk.

Last week we had the neighbors from across the street over for dinner; he’s retired Army and works for the same Special Forces contractor as Danielle. Very nice couple with two children.

Danielle will be going to Ft. Bennington for jump school so she might miss her cousin’s wedding in June. She doesn’t know the exact date yet so we’ll have to wait a bit.

We drove back to Maryland last Saturday and got most of Mom’s financial affairs settled. She had several accounts squirreled away over the years and some of the institutions would not give up any information until we had filed our power of attorney forms with them. My sister and her husband have done an incredible amount of work maintaining her finances and assisting with her care. At least we know that there are sufficient funds to maintain her in the assisted living center, even at a higher cost due to the level of care she is now receiving.

This is what Dad would have wanted. Mom is failing rather quickly but is still feisty. She has very low heart function left and congestive heart failure will do her in, maybe in a few months, or a few weeks, it’s hard to say. But knowing Mom, she could go to the end of the year perhaps just because she’s ornery. Either way, it’s in God’s hands.

When we moved Mom out of her condo in Hauppauge, Long Island, in 2015, we packed up a ton of her stuff and moved it into my sister’s garage. Caren said Mom had boxes of photos that we should go through. We finally sat down and did so on Friday. I couldn’t believe some of the old photos. A few were almost 100 years old. I saw some pictures of Mom when she was all dolled up in her late teens. She was stunning. By time she was twenty she already had my sister (1948), I followed a eight days less than a year later.