A Hummel, a Mop Angel, and a Crystal Ash Tray walk into a bar...

It would start small, her hobbies and collection frenzies.  There were Hummels, Bohemian Red Crystal, a deep garnet. There were angels, after Betsy Pence died of Menengitis, then more angels after Jinx's death. There were thimbkes, bells, and if she could have, she would have bought every Kitchen Witch that caught her eye. Paper mache macaws from the market in San Antonio, marytroshka dolls...we have it all. 

The crystal is a story for another time. For now, I am packing up more of my mother's life and it hurts, especially when I come across a dragonfly, which became her nickname in 2009, when she decided to by a red Vespa. She was at her heaviest then, 300lbs.  'Peg gets on that scooter and you watch that thing draggin' up hill. Then, BAM! She goes flyin'!' Daddy laughed deeply and she blushed both thrilled and humiliated by his attentions. If I ever needed proof that kink is hereditary...

 I have whittled down what I will keep. Ironically, some of the furniture will be rehomed with a family friend/client. It saves me extra time on the ground in London. I've started a box for my brother that my best fri be will keep at her house until we know if he does make parole. 

I have boxes packed for my father for his new studio, if he makes it that long. He hasn't gotten out of his bed in 3 weeks, outside of being put on a stretcher to go out to the VA. A TV, a few mugs, a new coffee maker and carafe. I love the man but I wonder if I am not wasting time and money.  Today, someone called me frugal. 'You're so much like your mother, you run a budget better than most.'   

We rub him down like a racehorse, trying to stir circulation into his feet. I marvel at how marble-like, how waxen he looks. It takes my breathe. It fills and wrings my heart out.

I packed up his ordnance maps from Germany yesterday, went through his commemorations and awards. Wondered why we need these plaques and trinkets and yet couldn't bear to not keep back a few.  I remember helping study for promotion boards, knowing he could make OCS if he wanted, knowing he had no intention of making OCS. In a similar way, I have chosen a quieter path, professionally, as though I knew subconsciously that the needs and love of my family would require time and effort, that I couldn't give my all to law, medicine or national security and be everything that was expected of me with my family. And I chose family. It was not the wrong choice, even when it chafed.

 It will free me up to choose a new path in the next few years, even though I am at a loss to know what that will even be. I don't know there is a map for this part of the journey and that terrifies me to my core.

My youngest shares my need to know how to get 'into' and 'out of' a situation. This memory cropped into my social media feed this week.

Whatever happens next, it's been pretty amazing thus far, even the harrowing and the heartbreaking.