Saying Goodbye 2 Mom's House

This stream-of-conscious post from September 2014 was written on the last night I spent in my mother's Chester duplex before the new owners moved in.

Tonight I am going to try to sleep on a yoga mat that my brother brought up from Bilings on his second round trip of this big move out of my mother's apartment where she lived 11 years before the nursing home became the better option. I am surrounded by objects from my past which I find hard to spend time absorbing, like scripts from the plays I acted in during 1972 in Santa Maria, California when I realized that to succeed in theatre meant immersion in theatre and sacrificing other interests. My world was too large then to commit to a laser focus on theatre. But in looking at my old scripts, I feel the joy of participating in productions where actors gave their hearts to characters and the resulting creations sent audiences into appreciative laughter, tears, and feeling a part of something beyond themselves.

It's very quiet here in Chester now between trains and with an impending snow in mid-September. Not the Indian summer I was hoping to go out on, but maybe more fitting of my mood. Quiet. Contemplative. Soft. I have loved seeing my mother every day and seeing her recognize me and call me by name. She remembers I live in Washington. That I work in an office. During today's visit, I took some pictures of her which she didn't recognize as herself. Then I showed her some of her clothes I've photographed and she recognized a few, and looking at those pictures provided the most extended conversation I've had with her. What a window into her mind. If only I can find other ways to engage her. My dear mother, tomorrow your children will leave your last house. What will you know or feel of our good-byes to a phase of your long and instructive life?