"I have this love...It was formed in me as he himself was formed. It has his shape, you might say. He fits it. He fits into it as he fits into his clothes. He will always fit into it. When he gets out of the car and I meet him and hug him, there he is, him himself, something of my own forever, and my love for him goes all around him just as it did when he was a baby and a little boy and a young man grown." (Hannah Coulter explaining how it felt to have her son grow up and move away in "Hannah Coulter" by Wendell Berry.)
Twenty-nine years ago, on May 17, 1982, a moving van came and our little family of three (plus one springer spaniel named Toby) filled it with all we owned and moved to North Carolina. That would be the last day we would wake up in our "Little House on Adams Street," the last day we would be next door neighbors to the Stumps, the last day we would live on a square block that we could walk completely around without going off the sidewalk.
It was the day we left a hole the size and shape of us in our parents' hearts. (And maybe some other peoples' hearts, too.)
Goodbyes had been said. Tears had been shed. Busyness had kept us from feeling too sad that day. It was amazing to see how organized -- and thorough -- the movers were. I looked for the library books I'd meant to return where I'd left them, on top of the refrigerator. Gone. They'd been packed. I'd emptied a vase of flowers into the sink. Also packed. (What were those guy thinking -- She'll want to put these babies into some fresh water as soon as she gets there!?)
I remember feeling that it was somehow appropriate when the loud BOOM that signalled that we were under a tornado warning sounded shortly after the movers left. But the all-clear sounded by the time we'd closed the door on our little home for the last time, on our way to our closest friends and most constant companions, Tony and Jane Abruzzo's, for one last meal together.
As we were having our final look-around, a car pulled up in front of the house...My dad, thinking we'd be gone, but kind of hoping we weren't -- yet. He had planned on just looking at the house (where he'd often stopped on his way home from work) one more time. But we were still there. More hugs and more tears, more assurances that we'd be back to visit soon, and that everything would be fine.
But everything was not fine. Not for a while...
Dad wrote me a letter soon after we'd gotten settled in our new home. He told me how he'd been so sad he hadn't wanted to get out of bed, how he'd gone to talk to the priest about how he felt. It still hurts my heart to think about the us-shaped hole we'd left in his. I was his first-born. And I was taking not only myself, but his first-born granddaughter, who'd been the light of his life for the last four years, far away to another state.
Things were not immediately okay in North Carolina, either...
Having only made the drive one other time, we managed to take the longest possible route to our new home, traveling through states that we could totally have avoided. (Hello -- Kentucky?!!) It was near midnight when we arrived, but My Awesome Husband Greg was eager to show me the house he'd rented for us.
Here's one thing I've learned: When you're so tired you're falling asleep standing up, when you've been cooped up in a car all day with a four-year-old and a dog, and when you're terrified that you might have just made the biggest mistake of your life...Well, that is not a good time to go check out the place you're going to be living for the next year or so -- especially if it's very dark and the lighting isn't good.
All I remember is opening one of the cupboards and discovering what had apparently been the mass suicide site of a cult of beetles! (And lights that seemed to give our skin a greenish cast, but it may not be entirely fair to blame that on the lighting.)
Unable to even pretend that I thought we'd be anything but miserable for the rest of our lives, we climbed back into the car and we drove another 12 miles to the motel where we'd spend our first night in beautiful North Carolina. It was dark there, too. And stinky. I think, like my dad, I had a broken heart. I cried myself to sleep somehow, and the sun came up in the morning.
That's when things started to be all right for our little group -- Greg, Meagan, Toby and myself. May in North Carolina is beautiful. The sun was shining. It was a new day -- a new life. Everything seemed strange and exciting. (Well, not those dead beetles, but in the morning light, at least they felt like something that could be dealt with.)
Things got better for my dad and mom, too. Never much for traveling, they made many trips back and forth between Michigan and North Carolina -- sometimes together, but more often, separately. They both eventually moved down here, at least for a while. We still return home -- joyfully -- to visit family and friends at least once every summer. And now, thanks to the internet, we are constantly in touch, sharing photos, news and random comments. The distance between us no longer seems so far.
Half of a life-time. I love North Carolina and all of the wonderful people here. I'll always miss Michigan and cherish my memories of the people we knew there. But things really are okay.
Afterword: I was able to mail my library books back to Lapeer, but by the time we unpacked those flowers, they were as dead as the beetles.
