Let me start by saying I know all the very good and positive things that are on the horizon, and I also know “one day we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny”. Now that we’ve established that, it’s time to find a way to try to calm my emotions.

This “farewell tour” and the long, relatively slow departure have been both a blessing and a curse. We have been so filled with and surrounded by love, caring, people and have had a few months to take it all in. I wonder if it would have been less emotional if we had not had this long time to do this, if, like getting into the ocean, it would have been easier to simply jump into the waves without too much thought? I know that when things are settled, however long that takes, and I’m writing from a new location, I will likely be incredibly thankful (as I am now) for the long, slow, exit tour.

Today, even though I have almost a full day tomorrow, it seems like the end. Granted, I didn’t sleep much last night (storm worries, lots and I mean LOTS of wine just sitting alone in the house (surrounded by boxes), listening to music and thinking. Today was the final Fred radio show from this house and from my ratty old leather recliner that is not coming with us, and accompanying bloodys, (though I only had 1 and 1/2 and that last 1/2 remains at this writing, unfinished). I wish I was a song writer because these last 19+ years deserve an epic song along the lines of Layla, Thick as a Brick, the live version of Nantucket Sleighride, or some such. I know what I want to say and I know what I feel, but I can’t seem to find the prose to do it justice, so perhaps, with apologies to Bob Baisley from CSHS over 50 years ago, I’ll simply go to stream of consciousness for the rest of this.

May of 2002: Sue moves into 195 West Rocks Road right after we close, I follow along in late June after Drew graduates from Trumbull high. It was exciting, busy but exciting. It was the start of what I hoped would be a new volume filled with love, laughs and adventures…It was ALL of that and more…

Trips I never thought I’d ever take, cats I never thought I’d ever like (I more than liked them..well two of the three anyway….Satchmo was Sue’s and he was a one person cat, but Molly and Handsome were both of ours and converted me by just being). Kacey the dog, always full of seizures, eventually left us pretty early on and it was almost 8 years more before Abbey THE dog came along (it took me that long to say yes)…now she’s nuts, and annoying, but a total love bug (for us). Hawaii, Napa, (multiple times each) Tuscany, day trips, week long trips, escaping the winter for a week each year to Vero Beach, returning much to my dismay to the cold (something that is one of those positive new changes…no more shoveling, ice, etc). Parties in the house, on the screen porch, a keg party and beer pong with 100 White Castle burgers on the back deck. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day traditions sometimes with family sometimes with family and friends, sometimes just us. None of this will change other than the fact that we will not be surrounded daily by the same group, but all of that is not going away…just “moving”

Impossible to describe pain, two canes, lots of vicodin and oxycontin, ultimately leading to hip replacements which both subsequently needed to be revised as they both ended up popping. Final acceptance that, as I approached 400 lbs on a 5’6″ frame I needed to do something and went the sleeve route very, very successfully and even I’m not at my lowest ever I’m still well, well below where I was, and all my physical markers are great (have not had sleep apnea and needed to use the annoying CPAP machine since the sleeve in 2015).

As annoying as the Covid mess has been, Sue and I have had this fabulously comfortable place to ride it out in safely. That said, this home, built in 1900, needs a lot more work than two retired teachers can afford to do, so it was largely financially motivated to call it a day here. The costs in SC are so much lower that it should allow us to visit often and for extended periods and it’s really not THAT far away…especially if we do it without Abbey THE dog and take a night or two along the way to pull up. Always hoped I’d hit Powerball for just enough to pay the house off totally and have enough left to properly fix it up and add things we wanted…then we could have stayed easily….and wintered in the warmth….however, was not to be. So we will take our memories with us, keep our fingers crossed for a long healthy run filled with making new memories and adding to old ones…

I’ll end with this and I will try to smile as I push publish because I’m simply out of thoughts:

Do not cry because they are past!
Smile, because they once were!