To talk of many things….
This has been a year like no other that I can remember, so many life events have happened that it is almost impossible to realize it’s only been just one year up the line.
Let’s just set the timeline from Easter 2020 to Easter 2021, it just seems to be a reasonable stretch to discuss…We’ll start with bad news…Easter 2020, my friend Silvio succumbs to Covid, something that was unexpected, shocking and still hurts. My daughter, during that time, is undergoing chemo treatments for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (a good news outcome, she comes through with flying colors and while always being wary, has a good, solid outlook for the future). The world as we know it shuts down for a long time, physical separations are the “new normal”.
The summer moves along without vacations, trips, gatherings except for the occasional outdoor distance seating, it’s the first year I can remember that I’ve not seen or dipped into the ocean in over 60 years. School starts again for me and for Sue, in person without any indication of what will happen long term.
We’ve now moved the timeline past Labor Day….there is talk of a vaccine but no real indication of when or how effective it might be, masks, sanitizing, elbow bumps on the golf course remain the way of the world.
Sue decides that it’s time to retire from a 36+ year run and in the space of two weeks after that, lands in the same place I am due to timing and circumstance. We celebrate holidays from afar and via zoom all the while being reminded of how precious the people around us are and how fleeting the time is with them.
Then, just prior to the calendar turning another year over, the news about a vaccine and a timeline becomes not just talk but reality. Through a series of fortunate circumstances (and dogged persistence) both Sue and I (and a lot of other folks) are able to be fully vaccinated by the middle of February (interestingly around the same time we would, any other year, have been sitting in the sunshine by the ocean). But the roller coaster takes another screaming dip as Sue’s dad begins a health descent…
During that time, or maybe because of that catalyst, we discuss the prospect of putting the house on the market the following year and really making the push to Hilton Head, where we have been looking for over three years as a place to enjoy full time. The realtor, having looked over the house and making suggestions on what we’d need to do to make it “market ready” suggests we put it on the market immediately due to what is going on and the paucity of inventory. We laugh but say, sure why not…
Two weeks later we have a firm offer from a buyer who LOVES the house and we prepare to accelerate our leaving and plan, at the conclusion of the school year, to move in with Sue’s ailing dad to both spend time with him and help care for him while we look for someplace in the Hilton Head area. Yup, you guessed it, the roller coaster is about to take another rapid plunge downhill…..Sue’s dad passes peacefully and on Good Friday, is placed along side Cathy, Sue’s mom, who passed in 2017. So much for the grand plan…which now is scuttled due to timing.
But wait, the coaster is about to rise up again….the buyers agree to delay through the summer so we can still have time to focus on NOT being homeless. We work with a fabulour agent in the Hilton Head area and in less than a month find and go to contract on a new construction home that we’ve not even seen other than in some pictures and videos by our agent, a home that won’t be ready until right at the time we’re due to move (keep in mind, faithful readers, Abbey THE dog is a major thorn in the moving mix).
While I’m sure there will be a few more dips in this ride for the next few months, I am excited about the new volume of our lives (notice I didn’t say new chapter, as this relocation will be a totally new volume). Come late August 2021, while most of our friends and colleagues will be gearing up to begin the first day of the new school year, we will either be on the road or unpacking boxes and learning how to properly use “y’all” and “bless your heart” in sentences. Since both of us retired after the start of the final school year we worked, this will be the first time in 46+ years for me and 36+ years for Sue that we will not be attending some administratively conceived “convocation” designed to “pump you up” for the upcoming school year. Instead, we will be exploring new places, sipping drinks at Skull Creek Boathouse, visiting the weekly farmer’s market in Bluffton, SC (our new home) and planning trips during times we were never able to even think about going before.
525,600 minutes (and a bit more) from Easter 2020 to just past Easter 2021….wow….
And with gratitude to Lewis Carroll I will finish this where I began..
The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
      To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
      Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
      And whether pigs have wings.’
But wait a bit,’ the Oysters cried,
      Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
      And all of us are fat!’
No hurry!’ said the Carpenter.
      They thanked him much for that.
A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said,
      Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
      Are very good indeed —
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
      We can begin to feed.’
And lest we forget….when life gives you a choice ALWAYS drink the good wine!
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