It's Saturday night. We've been back in RI for two days, but the first 24 hours
were both much more and much less than we'd hoped for. First, we missed our
flight out of Ft. Myers. Half an hour to get to the airport, okay. Ten minutes
in the check-in line, okay. Fifty-five minutes in the security line? Oh, no. They closed the doors three minutes before take-off time, and pushed away
a minute early. The supervisor and desk folk actually did a high-five at their
efficiency as eight of us ran to the gate just as they closed the door. Sorry,
they said with such self-satisfaction, but you should have been here two hours
early. They were right, of course; it's all about on-time
departures.
But they did get us on later
flights, and I'm grateful for that. We arrived in RI about 11:30 pm, the house
was found half-empty (of course it was; we shipped stuff to FL), and the
specter-threat of the break-in was palpable as we tried to find our way to sleep
about 1:30 pm. We got some sleep; but about 8 am, there was a thunderous sound
that awakened us, the earth and our house shook--almost as if a vehicle had run
into our house. But it was only a large tree in our front yard that fell toward
and over the street, but in the process taking the power and other lines with
it--oh, and the force of it snapping off a telephone pole, the top of which
crashed to the road with transformer attached, and all the hazmat-type stuff
flowing out in the street. By evening all would be replaced and power
restored--but still no phone, TV or internet. All that would be restored today,
Saturday.
About 11:30 am of that first
morning, about 24 hours after it was clear to us we just might miss that flight,
our broker came to visit because she thought bad news should be conveyed in
person. Old school. Well, it turns out that our contracted buyer had a problem,
and the closing date was no longer on the calendar. He had been fired that
morning. He had left his job in Texas to bring his family East for a better
opportunity--he thought--had found the house he wanted for his family (ours),
only to be fired a couple months or so after selling his Texas house and moving
here. If we were disappointed to have the sale of our RI house pushed off into
the future yet again, we can only speculate about the pain and despondency
visited upon the prospective buyer for whom our house was a part of an exciting
next phase of their family life now dissipated, terminated, denied, like the
hopes of so many people in recent years. We mourn and pray for their
situation.
Later that same day, I visited my
elderly parents, 93 and 89. My mother is now in an Alzheimers unit of the same
assisted-living facility where my father remains in the assisited-living suite
they'd shared. Both were in much worse physical condition than I expected; both
were on God's time and at His door. It was a terribly sad and unwelcome
experience. They will pass on soon, whether a matter of days, weeks, or a month
or two, and I am relieve to have 45 Downing Street as my strong fortress right
now, my emotional base from which to work through this difficult passage. The
sale of the house can wait a while; I'm pleased to have the additonal time here,
especially at this time.
But, as an old friend used to
assure me, this too will pass. Life will have its way--we will say our goodbyes,
we will sell the house, we will spend time with older friends here, then we will
return to our new house, friends and life in Naples. Life goes on.
I hope to see all those friends somewhere in this
process. Thanks for being there, and being who you are to us.
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