STRUGGLING WITH SERENDIPITY
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an emotional day

1/9/2019

4 Comments

 
Picture
Beth’s second trip to the Paralympic World Cup in England fell conveniently during reading period, Harvard’s open study time before finals. I stayed home. Peggy flew to Manchester as a Team USA coach. Aware of Beth’s earlier solution for the high bed at the same hotel, Peggy placed the box springs along the wall and left the mattress to sleep on. Beth brought home a bronze international medal.
 
In Ohio, the two-story Tiffin home we bought in 1984 for $39,000 appraised 23 years later at $105,000. In the midst of the housing crisis, home sales had slowed nationally and even more in Tiffin because of factory closings. We listed the house for $99,000. On a lucky day, a young couple requested a second showing of our home. We told them we would accept an offer of $90,000.
 
The home where we raised our children sold.
 
An early closing date forced us to rent a Tiffin apartment for two months. I turned in my notice at the nursing home and sold our second work car. We left our old house and garden walkways on an emotional day. So many memories. I wish I had kept the seeds of the flowers we called 4 o’clocks. They thrived in the dirt of a front window well. Over decades, the colors blended into one-of-a-kind blooms, each flower unique.
           
At a tiny apartment across town, John and I carried a double mattress to the bedroom floor and a single bed on a metal frame for Beth in the living room. The only other furnishings: a TV, card table, and two matching chairs. And important things, like my African violets.
           
Beth’s sixth swimming summer began with my drive east to pick her up at Harvard and bring her to Tiffin for the last time.
 
She swam with SAK and Peggy at the outdoor pool and on her own at the YMCA. She researched her senior thesis. Always reading, Beth checked off more books on her top one hundred classics list. We both read Jane Austen books and watched movie renditions, always rating the books higher. She completed her Harry Potter collection with the seventh and last, “The Deathly Hallows.” The first 24 hours of sales set a new record with 11 million copies sold. She waited in a long line with Ellen and Lizzy to see the fifth Harry Potter movie, “The Order of the Phoenix.” A dinner in Sandusky with Laraine ended in a teary farewell, probably for the last time.
           
Beth started graduate school applications and made notes for admission essays.
 
“I have met many people with disabilities who are limited by inadequate health services. This stark reality has shifted my focus from a childhood desire to be a doctor to fighting for disability rights.”
 
Next: More Travels!
4 Comments
Amy Henry link
1/10/2019 11:03:53 am

Great installment, Cindy. It's hard to leave a home you've lived in so long (and raised a family in). I loved your description of your "interim" life in the Tiffin apartment--just the basics. Did it make you feel young again? I think that's one of the "freedoms" that gets lost as we accrue kids, commitments, stuff--the joy of being able to throw everything you have into the trunk of a car and take off.

Reply
Cindy Kolbe link
1/13/2019 03:41:04 pm

Thanks, Amy! Yes, moving with the basics did remind me of my younger days. Material possessions can be a burden at times. Though I have to admit that I really appreciate the ones that make life more comfortable! ;-)

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Jason Rhode link
1/22/2019 03:57:11 pm

I hated leaving our house in Michigan and our first and second house here in Texas.

Disabled rights, a very admirable field...especially in this day and age of cynicism.

Reply
Cindy Kolbe link
1/23/2019 07:36:48 pm

Yes, I think home isn't so much a physical space as a place we share with people we love.

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