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I’m away from home. I miss my home. Why? The routine. I get up in the morning. I fix my coffee. I feed the cats. I write. I eat breakfast. I tour the yard and then the day starts. When I’m away from home I have to run my routine in the empty spaces of my hosts lives. So, no cats, no yard. Tiptoes and silence when I get up at 5:30 and fix my coffee and start writing. And when the day starts, it’s their day and I’m mostly tagging along.

Of course, that’s the point of a visit, to be tangled up in the lives of your hosts, because you miss them and want to see them, and in this case it’s my oldest son and his wife and their daughter who is competing in her final high school district track meet. Next year she’ll run collegiate track for Sam Houston. And later today, I trek across town to have lunch with my daughter. That’s cool. But I still wonder what’s happening in the yard and has the Morning Glory started its climb up the new trellis, and what’s going on with the spiderworts and the coral sage.

Maybe this is a sign I’m adjusting to my new life of solitude. Previously, coming home was simply a reminder of what was missing, my wife. I almost couldn’t stand being there. But it’s nearly two years since she died and more than four since she first moved out and into memory care. That’s a long time gone, which might explain why it feels as though the deepest of wounds might be healing a bit, slowly but surely, and why I now like coming home to the sweet memories and the new possibilities I see all around, one flowering plant, one leafing tree, one season at a time.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Talea

John W Wilson

Gatewood Press is a small, family owned press located in the Hill Country of Texas.

http://www.gatewoodpress.com
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