More on travelling light

It's quiet here tonight at my house on 14th Street.  Grahame is working late and Oblio, the "round head" cat is as "lazy as the day is long"~sleeping blissfully atop the fireplace mantel as I make this blog post.  The phone has only rang once since I got home from school and even the neighborhood kids, who normally are screaming at the top of their lungs as they play outside, have been nowhere to be seen since I got home from school.  The only sound present is the "clicking of the computer keys" as I write this and the occasional honking of a car horn from parents picking up their children at the piano studio next door.


I have been the owner of this house since 2005, having lived here now for almost 7 years.   Wow, where did THAT time go?  But my connection to this house goes much further back than 2005, in fact for nearly 25 years it was my parent's home.  My dad and mom moved here on my oldest son's 2nd birthday, October 2nd, 1982.  Prior to that time, they had been living on the farm, loving life out in the country.  Then came Dad's lung cancer and because he knew his time here was getting more limited each day, he desperately wanted to get Mom moved into town and settled before things got any worse than they already were.  They made the move exactly 8 weeks before he passed away on December 11, 1982.  They had arrived just in time, Mom was "safe" and Dad knew that.  


After Mom moved into the nursing home in 2003, we had to sell this house in order to pay for her continued care~a sad, but very real fact of life for a lot of people these days who face this same ordeal in the end stages of their folks' lives.  Luckily for us, we found someone who wanted to buy this house, renovate it, and then resell it.  During the 1-year period of time that it was being redone, I never had any notion that I might one day own it.  NEVER did it even enter my mind.  But life changed dramatically for me, and on April 11, 2005, I became its new owner and I've been here ever since.


You know in the whole scheme of things, the size of this house is a pretty good example of "travelling light".  Only 2 bedrooms, 1 tiny bathroom, kitchen and dining room, and living room are found here.  Not too bad with just one or two people at home, but add in about 20 extra  relatives during the holidays and things tend to get a little crowded.  But actually, this much I can say~some of the best times in our family's life were when we were crowded elbow to elbow around the table, sleeping all over the living room floor because there weren't enough beds to go around, or the ever popular, "long line at the bathroom door."  My friends, have you "been there, done that" too? 


For Mom, this house was "enough"...she didn't need a fancy place with 5 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, full and finished basement, and a 2-car garage.  It was while living here that she began her journey of "travelling light" and it's where my own journey has already begun as well.   The older I get, the more like her that I am....this house has been enough for me too.  I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to be here, to be blessed by calling it my home as well.  


When Mom passed away, 2 weeks after her September 12th birthday in 2007, her family came back to be together in this house once again.  I'm positive that she would have been most happy to see her "old place" filled with the familiar faces of kids, grandkids, and even great-grandkids.  Tears were shed by all of us here but a lot of happy memories were shared as well.  Since that time, there have been many family get togethers and believe me, NOTHING has changed!  There's still a line at the bathroom door and now there are so many of us that we've spilled out onto the porch during mealtimes.  I'm sure that Mom could not be happier!  :)


Learning the art of "travelling lighter" has now taken a very important place on the "Miller Bucket List".  In the months ahead, I'm going to be taking a pretty close look at just what I really need to survive in this life~important enough to me to take a place in the "over my dead body pile!"....as well as the stuff I could have easily done without in the first place.  I've already begun the process and this much I can attest to on this night~travelling light sure does feel good!  :)  Have a great evening and good sleep to you my friends....I'm pulling for you all!  Good Night!

The day Mom came to say "good bye" to her house, just before it was sold.  It was sad, but she knew it had to happen.  She was glad that I bought it that next year but chose only to visit it once after I moved in.  She wanted me to make it "my house", not hers.  I understood~

The 3 cousins who grew up in this house, the night before Mom's funeral.  They sat in her old bedroom and talked of a grandmother they loved very much.  If the walls of this bedroom could talk, oh man...what stories we would hear!  Their Grandma Scott was a wonderful "keeper of secrets" and her 16 grandchildren knew that they could tell her ANYTHING!


Ricky Miller, Mandy St. Clair Dwyer, and Brandy St. Clair Lackey-September 27, 2007