{"id":2922,"date":"2008-12-24T22:30:55","date_gmt":"2008-12-25T04:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/?p=2922"},"modified":"2008-12-24T22:30:55","modified_gmt":"2008-12-25T04:30:55","slug":"a-different-kind-of-post-childhood-memories-and-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/24\/a-different-kind-of-post-childhood-memories-and-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"A different kind of post: Childhood memories and stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is going to be a different kind of post from my usual.<\/p>\n

I’m home in Little Rock on Christmas Eve night.\u00a0 It’s a more eventful Christmas than usual around here.\u00a0 My mother is moving into an assisted living facility this month.\u00a0 She’ll still have her own apartment and a normal life, but help will be a button away if she needs it, which is important because she’s had two minor strokes and some other health issues the past three years.\u00a0 The movers came and moved the stuff she’s keeping into her new apartment yesterday.\u00a0 The stuff she’s not taking, including the extra bed, is still in her old house.\u00a0 So tonight we’re staying in separate places – she’s in the new place and I’m in the old.<\/p>\n

The old house is about 1200 SF plus a good-sized attic.\u00a0 The new place is less than 600 SF.\u00a0 That means she’s having to leave a lot of stuff behind – sell the items that are worth money, and throw the rest out.\u00a0 The movers have brought down everything from the attic, and I’ve been walking around tonight looking at memories from my childhood.\u00a0 The box full of toys that made me so happy when I was 3.\u00a0 The green watering can that my grandmother used to water the violets on the windowsill.\u00a0 A bag full of stuffed bunnies that I received in Easter baskets over the years.\u00a0 There’s a stuffed chick in there too.\u00a0 I can’t remember the chick’s name but I distinctly remember that I loved it very much when I was only a couple of years old.\u00a0 There’s the original Atari VCS that I spent many hours of 1982 playing.\u00a0 I wonder if it still works.<\/p>\n

Then there’s the silver place settings that my grandmother wanted me to have.\u00a0 She died in 1999 and I guess she figured at some point after that, I’d turn into a normal person and get married and have a family.\u00a0 I wonder if she ever looks in on me late night as I gobble down some to-go nachos from Huey’s with a plastic fork, and if so, what she thinks about the direction my life has taken.\u00a0 Funny thing is, that silver is worth several thousands of dollars probably, but I’d rather have her old watering can which would probably sell for 50 cents at Goodwill.<\/p>\n

I’m kind of glad all this stuff is being dispensed with though.\u00a0 If my mother had stayed in the old house until she died and I had to deal with the removal of all of it, it would have sent me right over the edge.\u00a0 I’ll grab a few souvenirs to take back with me to Memphis before I leave Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The new apartment looks like it’s going to work out great.\u00a0 My mother is already meeting “the girls” in the lunch room and making lots of new friends.\u00a0 I have a feeling she’ll be a lot less lonely than she was in the house all by herself.\u00a0 I think it will be the start of a whole new life for her.<\/p>\n

One of the things she’s leaving behind is her computer.\u00a0 The apartment building has a computer lab with Internet connections.\u00a0 She’s going to use the lab until I get my employment situation straightened out, at which time I’ll buy her a laptop and she’ll get Internet in her apartment.\u00a0 I went ahead and gave her a Christmas gift a day early, a 16 GB flash drive with PortableApps.com<\/a> installed on it to use in the lab.\u00a0 I gave her a computer when she retired in 1995 and taught her how to use e-mail and create her own web page.\u00a0 Most of her neighbors don’t even know how to turn a computer on.\u00a0 I predict she’s about to come upon a newfound popularity as “the one who knows about computers.”<\/p>\n

So I spent the day at her new place, then drove back to the old place about 7.\u00a0 On the porch I found 5 giftwrapped lawyer boxes full of food from my mother’s church.\u00a0 “You are deeply loved,” said the note on the box.\u00a0 They know she’s not been in the best health lately, and that she spent a lot of money on the move, and wanted to help.\u00a0 I was really touched by that gesture.\u00a0 Kind of made the “experiencing God’s love through the act of giving to others” thing strike home to me.<\/p>\n

All right.\u00a0 Enough rambling.\u00a0 Merry Christmas to all my blog readers and friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"