I had a couple chapters of my life close this week. First, my step-mother passed away on 5/13. No one from her family contacted me to tell me. Then, when my cousin’s wife heard a week later, she called to let me know. I was not terribly close to her although I made several trips down to see her in the nursing home the last two years. I did not attend the memorial yesterday. My brother and I were not mentioned in the obituary. That’s ok, I had only met her cousin a time or two and she’s the one who did the obit. I hope my stepmother rests in peace.

The second thing is, my ex-husband and his wife have moved and the house he and I bought in 1990 is on the market. Now, I haven’t lived in that house for 16 years so it doesn’t hold the meaning for me that it once did. But, I was compelled to look it up on the real estate site. They always have such lovely photographs of the interiors of homes. They had done quite a bit of face-lifting since I lived there but the bones are the same. I loved looking through the photos and remembering where my baby’s crib was. There was his parent’s bed. The board and bead paneling I put in the master bedroom was still there. It was a lovely little stroll into my past.

These are two chapters that are finished for me. I have no more parents, or quasi parents. And I’ll not see the original Fred Haberlein mural on the soffits in the kitchen of a house I loved. Nor will I see the doorframe where I measured our little one’s growth. The end is the beginning. Somewhere, in some way there is something beginning because this chapter is done. The flow of life goes ever forward.

❤️

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Ephesians 4:31-32 NIV