Monday Morning Faith (8 page)

“Megan?” I seemed to be in a wind tunnel. All I could hear was sucking air: mine.

“Megan … our realtor.”

Our realtor?
“You've already consulted a realtor.”

“Figured it would be easier this way. Saved a lot of haggling.” Pop grinned. “Look at it this way. You'll have time to make friends and have fun, which you don't have now, and we'll get to play bingo and visit with people our age.”

“I thought you were happy here with me.” I could not understand why they would make this decision without consulting me. Surely they didn't really want to move to The Gardens when they could stay in their own home. “You're not telling me everything, are you?”

“Oh, yes, honey. I know you're shocked, but we feel this will be better for all of us in the long run. We'll have access to nursing care twenty-four hours a day. There will be activities and people around us. The way things are now, we just sit home alone most of the time. It does get a trifle boring.” She nodded toward Pop. “Clive needs extra care too.”

“You've never seemed to mind before. What brought on this sudden change of heart?”

Pop sighed. “It isn't sudden. We've been thinking about it for some time. Just weren't sure how to go about it. Then we got the idea to call The Gardens and have them send someone out to talk to us. A representative came by last week, and we went over our situation with him. We liked what we heard, so we signed up, and here we are.”

“Then it's a done deal?”

“Yes, dear. You'll come around to our way of thinking when you've had time to adjust. Best thing we can do. Good for all of us. We'll have a one-bedroom apartment, three hot meals a day, and all the activities folks like us can handle.” Pop beamed.

The doorbell chimed and I went to answer. Pizza delivery. Dinner in a box. A far cry from the meal I had planned. I was so upset I devoured three pieces.

Later, I cleaned up pizza boxes and then went to my room and called Nelda. “Guess what I got hit with tonight?”

“What? You got hit? Anyone hurt?”

“Hit
figuratively
speaking. My parents are moving to The Gardens, putting this house on the market. They told me to get an apartment. I can't believe this.”

Silence.

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard. I'm having trouble absorbing the shock. Why did they do that?”

“They said they got bored sitting home alone.” I could hear the aggravation in my voice. Even now that we had thrashed out all the details and I'd looked over the information from The Gardens, I still could not believe my life was about to turn upside down.

“How do you feel about it?”

“Betrayed. Abandoned. They did this behind my back, informing me after the decision was perpetrated.”

“If they
had
told you, what would you have done?”

“Talked them out of it, of course!”

“That's why they didn't tell you. Don't make such a fuss about it. They're adults; if it's what they want, go along with them.”

“You don't understand. This arrangement will never work out. They'll want to come home, and if we sell the house they'll have no home to come back to. They have not thought this through.”

“I'll bet they have. Pop is one smart dude. He knows what he's doing.”

Not this time
. This time he'd made a serious miscalculation.

FIVE

A
catastrophic mistake.

Moving day and I still wasn't in sync with Mom and Pop's sudden mental collapse. They were out of their blooming minds! I'd been born in this house, lived here all my life. Overnight my nice, safe, comfortable world had taken a nosedive.

Mom called from her bedroom. “I can't take all these picture albums with me. If you don't want them, we'll send some home with your cousin Mack.”

“What would Mack want with them?” Those albums went all the way back to Mom's childhood. Most of those people were dead. Neither Mack nor I would know 90 percent of those people.

Mom's voice floated back. “He won't want them, but Margaret will. You know her. She'll take anything that's free.”

Well, yes, Aunt Margaret, Mack's mother (and how
did
that woman ever raise a sweet boy like him?) was a pack rat. One trait we had in common. I saved everything. Box tops, pieces of string. Everything.

I hated that about myself, but I hung on to stuff until forced to part with it. In my top drawer I even had headbands I'd worn in grade school. Even so, Aunt Margaret could have the surplus photo albums; Mom had doubles of everything. “Fine with me.”

I was headed for an apartment — monthly rent, just like all those divorced men and women trying to live on half an income. I was beginning to realize how lucky I'd had it. No rent, no utilities. I
had
bought groceries and taken care of the cooking, cleaning, and caregiving. But Mom and Pop provided the home. Now I'd be on my own with large chunks of free time and nothing to fill the empty hours. Itty Bitty leaned against my foot, sensitive to my emotions. I stooped and ran my fingers through his short, silky white hair.

Now it would be just the two of us. I'd have to find an apartment that allowed animals; Itty would be home alone all day and he wouldn't like it.

Pop called from the living room, “Johanna, you want these encyclopedias? If you don't, we'll put them in the sale.”

“Sale?” I squawked. “What sale?”

“The auction.” He sounded matter-of-fact, as if we were discussing the weather instead of my entire lifetime now going into cardboard boxes.

I set the copper teakettle I'd been holding on the stove top and walked into the living room. “We're having a sale?”

He stuffed a wrapped vase into a carton. “We can take a limited number of things with us. You won't have room for all of this junk in your apartment. Best to get rid of it.”

I didn't
have
an apartment. I didn't want one either. “Junk? Since when did our personal possessions become junk?”

“Since we don't need them anymore. Possessions are fine as long as you need them, but when you don't need them they turn into burdens.”

Maybe he had a point, but I hadn't reached that level of objectivity. To me the things I'd grown up with were memories, mementos, treasures that couldn't be replaced. “Pop … events are moving too fast for me. Let's not talk sale or getting rid of the house yet. Give me a little breathing space, okay? You may change your minds, and then what would you do?”

He pulled a copy of C. S. Lewis's
The Screwtape Letters
out of the bookcase. “I want to keep this.”

“See? One more reason to keep the house for a while. Determine what we need before we have a sale.”

He nodded, and for the briefest of moments I thought I saw mist in his eyes. He cleared his throat and reached for another book. “Honey, we thought about discussing this with you first, but would you have been any more agreeable?”

“I don't like change, Pop.” I thought he didn't either. How could he and Mom think they could be happy in assisted living? Most of those folks were trying to escape the tedium of their days.

“No one likes change, Johanna. Your mom and I have fought getting older, but God never intended for life to be the same year after year. We change. We get older. It's life's cycle. No use fighting it; it's coming to every one of us.”

Depression settled over me like a burial shroud. “Oh, Pop … I hate that we're all getting old.”

“Ah, honey. Praise God for every year and every grey hair. Some don't live to see their twentieth birthday. Remember the story about how the butterfly's wings grow strong because it has to force its way out of the cocoon?”

Sure, I remembered the story. He'd told it to me when I was a child as we watched a butterfly striving to be born. Pop used nature in creative ways to teach me lessons about life and about God. “A man wanting to be compassionate broke open the cocoon so the butterfly could emerge without the struggle,” I recalled.

“And what happened? The butterfly's wings never developed the strength to fly.”

I knew where he was heading with this and I wanted no part of it. “I'm not a butterfly.” I was a flesh-and-blood human who wanted my life to remain the same.

“No, but you've lived in a cocoon for a long time. Before I die, I want to know you've developed good, strong wings.”

“You're going to live for a long time, and I'm terrified to fly. I don't know how.”

“Flying isn't hard. We develop our wings through faith, and God does the rest.”

I knew he was right, but I was already homesick for my cocoon. “I'll make a list of things that will go into the auction.” And I'd take my own sweet time doing it. He might be ready for this move, but that didn't mean I was. A new problem surfaced. “How will you get to church? Are you still riding with me?”

“The Gardens have their own services. On the Sundays I don't feel like getting out, we'll attend there. On good days, they have a bus that will deliver us right to the front door of church. If we run into medical problems, there will be experienced nurses on duty. Don't you slack off on church, though, just because we're not here to go with you every week.”

Of course I'd go to church; I hadn't thought of not going. But I couldn't help wondering, where was God in this upheaval? If he was in my corner, I couldn't feel his presence.

Mom called and Pop wheeled into the bedroom to answer. I returned to the kitchen, fighting tears. Jim and Nelda arrived, Mack on their heels. They'd agreed to help with the move. The Gardens had furnished and unfurnished units; my parents had chosen unfurnished so they could have some of their own things. Pop pointed out the comfortable couch and chairs from the den, their bedroom furniture, and the small table and chairs from the sunroom. Whoever bought the house would get the stove and refrigerator. I shut Itty Bitty in my bedroom to keep him out of the way. He was so small it would be easy to step on him in the rush.

We loaded furniture into Jim's truck. Soon the house looked pretty vacant. Oh, they left enough furniture to fill my apartment, but the semblance of my former life consisted of dust bunnies on wood floors. Mom and Pop rode with Mack, and they were off, leaving Nelda to help me sort and pack the personal items they wanted to take.

“What you gonna do now, girl?” She folded towels and packed them in a cardboard apple box from Save-A-Lot grocery.

I slumped down on the needlepoint-covered footstool that Mom had made years ago. “I have no idea. I'm still reeling. Why would they want to leave their home?”

“Two reasons, I'd guess.” Nelda perched on the edge of my favorite chair, left behind.

I fixed her with a cynical look. “You have it all figured out, I suppose?”

“Not all of it, but I'll bet I'm close. One, they wanted to be with people their own age. Assisted living is a good step for people who need someone to look out for them but are still able to have a measure of control over their lives.”

I sighed. “
I
looked after them, and they had all the control they needed.”

“Needed — that's the key. When parents get older, we tend to make their decisions for them. The children run their lives, make their decisions, tell them they're too old to drive or too senile to keep their own checkbooks. Your folks will do fine. They'll have bingo, games, crafts, and social activities — companionship with others their age. They had to get bored staying home by themselves day after day.”

It was true. I did everything for Mom and Pop, including setting their bedtime. “You said two reasons.”

“As long as they stayed here, you would never leave and have a life of your own.”

“I beg your pardon? I
have
a life of my own. You know I never begrudged the time I spent taking care of them.”

“I know that.” She got up and stretched. “Muscles getting stiff from sitting. Look, Jo, they've set you free.”

“Booted me out of the nest, is more like it.” And I resented it. No one had asked
me
if I was happy with the changes.

“High time too. A forty-year-old baby bird
needs
to be kicked out. You gotta learn to fly before arthritis sets in your wings.”

I pitched a cushion at her. Butterflies and birds. What brought on all this advice about flying?

She caught the pillow and turned it over to read the embroidered motto out loud. “ ‘You can either agree with me or be wrong.' ”