Saturday, April 30, 2011

Welcome home, Dad

Moving day finally arrived, today. We drove up to Dad’s stopping at Foster’s Shoes (est. 1946 and still operating from the same small metal building that I remember from the 1960’s). Lisa purchased a couple pairs of shoes. Who knows when she’ll have a chance to go bargain hunting there again. We stopped again at H&M Country Store where Lisa bought some cannas to plant in our front yard. We laughed at the treacherous sounding Amish canna bulbs.

Dad had already loaded his van when we pulled up in his driveway, but we went through the house finding little useful items that should not be left behind. We did leave the can of Folgers coffee that has been in the kitchen since Mom was alive (Dad is not a coffee drinker). In Granny’s old bedroom, Gabby found a small photo album containing pictures of Mom. She was laughing in the photos. I remember that she was nearly always laughing. If she knew that we left behind her Folgers, she’d be laughing now.

As moving days go, today was perhaps anticlimactic. We’ve spent weeks preparing for Dad to come, and all that work made today flow smoothly. Most of Dad’s furniture has been in our garage since snow was still falling, but we recently repaired the traces and glides in dresser drawers and applied Restore-a-Finish to every surface. Earlier this week, we vacated the master bedroom for the guest bedroom upstairs. We placed Dad’s old furniture in our old room. It looked nice there waiting for him to come home.

Tonight after dinner, and after running a few errands, we helped Dad settle in. By 9 PM we’d hung his pictures on his walls. The room looks as if Dad has been living with us for a long time.

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