Moving Forward….

I wonder how many widows dread getting into the dirty, funky areas that our late husband’s had as their sole domain??  After my husband passed away, I began the task of sorting through his things and finding homes for the items that I no longer wanted or needed.  By the end of the year in which he died, I had pretty much accomplished that in the areas of the house that we shared.

There were a couple of areas that were totally Rudy’s.  The first is the workshop in the basement where he built his remote control planes and fabricated beautiful wooden items, including the cabinet doors and drawers when we updated the kitchen.  The other is the garage…..

No way to thank these people…

OK, I started to talk about the hard time I was having even starting to clean out the garage following the death of my husband.  But the story has become how wonderful it is to have friends that you can count on, even when you do not expect it.

I had started the task of cleaning out the garage.  I had tackled the job the same way one would of you had to eat an elephant… one little piece at a time.  I had found screws and bolts all over the floor near the work bench.  I had cleaned off the top of the work bench and was working on the shelf.  I had worked on nits of it and then come inside to gather my emotions and energy before heading out to do it again.  Little bits at a time…!  On one of my breaks I had called my best friend in Maryland to see how she was doing and to see if her husband might have time over the weekend to come to the Maryland house and help clean out the attic.  I told her what I was doing and just as I was about to call it a day because I was getting tired, I saw a big blue pickup truck pull into my driveway.  It was my friend Marji and her husband Danny.  They had come to help.

And help they did.  We continued to clean and sort and sweep and arrange for another few hours until I had 5 bags of trash, Danny had a lot of scrap metal in his truck and both sides of the garage were cleaned up and I had room for all of the odds and ends that had been piling up on my deck and storage room that really belong in the garage.  I am thrilled!!!!!!!  It would have taken me another day or two before I had gotten to this point.  I still have tools to sort through and place in the rolling tool chest, but everything is together.

Danny will be down on Sunday (and perhaps tomorrow) at the summer house to help me begin the task of cleaning out areas and getting my stuff moved.  The house in Maryland has been sold and once the buyer has the money in his hot hands, we will schedule settlement and I will be back to one home which is just fine with me.  I am not sure what will happen over the next few weeks, but it is such a comfort to a widow to know that there is someone that can rely on to be there to help me do these physical things like moving boxes from the attic, taking large pieces of artwork from the peaks of a cathedral ceiling house and just do the physical labor that I cannot do alone, no matter how hard I try.

Marji and Danny, I can never thank you enough.  I think God everyday that you are in my life and will do what I can to repay you.  I love you both so much…!