Walking the Line

Look, I'm famous. Ain't the internet grand for pretending so?

Mom's move from her hometown in the Sierra Nevada foothills to an assisted living apartment in the Bay Area was intense but went well. My sisters were dynamos. Plus we had help from a variety of family members on both sides of the move. Love-infused help.

I'm going back over to her place today to take care of a few more details. I called her but got her answering machine. But--how amazing--I don't have to worry that something's wrong. She might be in the library reading or on the computer. Or she might be walking with an exercise group. Or she might be eating in the dining room. Or getting her hair done in the salon upstairs.

It's amazing to realize that simultaneously she has more independence and more safety.

People have been wondering how I was able to post Poetry Monday while in the midst of moving my mom. It's easy when you wake up filled with anxiety on the couch of your soon-not-to-be-parents'-house at 3 a.m. Yes, in the wee hours before the move I was posting from my mom's computer that hadn't yet been dismantled.

It was surreal, sad, unbelievable saying good-bye to the house where I'd spent so many hours playing cards with my parents, eating meals together, helping them put in new light bulbs and other tasks that my father could no longer do as he got weaker. The house where the last night of his life, he, my mom and I watched Walk the Line and ate pie.

He'd asked me to look online to see how old Johnny Cash was when he died. 71. My dad was 76. I like to think they are somewhere together right now, playing poker and smoking cigars.