Turn and Face the Strange

Autumn, it seems, will be a time of changes.

After living on her own for over two years, Mom will be moving in with us, probably next month. She receives Social Security and wages from a cleaning job, but she's unable to make ends meet, and the logical conclusion was for her to come live with us. She'll basically be inhabiting the lower level of the house, and she's already fearful of being "in our way." Hopefully she'll settle in and settle down without too much anxiety.

She's currently enmeshed in trying to sell her property. She's never liked the old house where we lived and once Dad died, she was eager to sell and move to a place built within the last century. The asshole developers who signed a purchase agreement to buy the property are basically giving her the run-around and have held things up since 2006.

When the idea of selling the land first came up, I had a hard time with it. The old house and surrounding farmland have been in my family for decades, and there are memories and ghosts wrapped up in that soil. I don't do well with goodbyes, but I was able to put my grieving on the back burner when the sale stalled and Mom continued to live there.

But now that she's going to live here, the house will be abandoned, and that makes me incredibly sad. Having to say goodbye is a closer reality now, a chill upon my soul, the start of a hole that will eventually burrow completely through my heart.

I went back to the house on Sunday, and I felt the grief welling as I made my way up the driveway. Moving around inside felt familiar yet strange - it was home but it wasn't.

There's an ancient oak in the backyard - a guardian who witnessed and blessed my wedding, as my husband-to-be and I stood beneath its spreading limbs and pledged our devotion to each other. It nearly died quite some time ago but it came back, gnarled and scarred but still full of life. Once the land belongs to someone else, I'm sure that old friend will be destroyed, and it breaks my heart. On Sunday, I stood with my hand against its thick bark and cried for the grief I feel now and for the grief to come.

I wish we would win the lottery so I could pay Mom for the land and keep it intact - perhaps create a park named for my father so the legacy of my part of the family line would live on, even after I'm gone.

Tears fall like the leaves. I know the Wheel will turn and things will change, transform, pupate from caterpillar to butterfly. I know this to be true, but for right now, I don't have to like it.