Beck’s Good Word has languished while my (me, Mr. Beck) attention has been arrested by other things. Only a few of these things have been ‘of the internet.’
In March, on the morning of the 11th, my brother Rick was on the phone. Del answered. I was summoned from sleep, and answered groggily. As my feet hit the cold floor, I already knew what he was calling about. His first words confirmed it: “I have sad news,” he said.
Mom had died at Riderwood’s ‘assisted living’ quarters, a place called Arbor Ridge. The last conversation I had had with Mom was in mid-February. I’m not entirely sure she knew who I was. She was always pretty good at faking her way past her states of mind and infirmities with me, and that last conversation was the rare exception. She said “they’re coming.” By the sounds in the background, of her caregivers, I could tell they were already there. But then she said, with some emotion and plaint, “I want to go home.”
So Rick was calling to say that she was home at last.
In May, as school was ending for the year, I took a bereavement leave and went by car with Del to Mom’s memorial service in good old Silver Spring, MD. I played “You’re As Welcome As The Flowers in May” on the Good Shepherd memorial piano instead of taking to the low pulpit for any ‘good words.’
Del and I stayed, as has been my wont, at the little cabin in Skyland Estates, Linden, Virginia. (85 Enna Lane.) I took a few good pictures and put then up on Facebook. Early Spring was beautiful: the new life was all around and we took in our usual watering holes, plus attended a Civil War affair down in Front Royal. (Virginia, of course, was on the Confederate side, and therefore, I was in enemy territory.)
I’d planned to have a work blowout at the cabin sometime in the summer. I shifted that plan to accommodate the second trip of the year which would include Arlington National Cemetery for Mom’s inurnment at the end of July.
At the inurnment, I took the urn in its wooden box from the Navy chaplain, and after he and the Methodist pastor of sister Carol’s little congregation (Wesley Grove) had spoken, and put it in the the columbarium wall next to Dad’s urn. A snug fit. Together again at last. Insert profundity here; but failing at that, let the tears fall when and where they may.
Next up was the family pow wow at the Eye-talian restaurant on the way to points elsewhere, just outside the Capitol Beltway. I sat across from Ruth and Ed Wise, and their daughter Debbie, my sister in law. Del was next to me. Things were very relaxed. The wait staff was swift and professional, the food good and modestly portioned (apropos for lunch), and the conversation was mostly nonsense. Ed, who has aged shockingly, was trying to score points for Ruth with me regarding her musical accomplishment. (‘She once learned and played the Warsaw Concerto for piano solo’.) Can you believe it! Anton Walbrook was the composer in the film Dangerous Moonlight!
After which, there was nowhere to go but back to the cabin and to work.
It didn’t take long, really to get the old wood out of the way:
And Del went to work on grading the path and adding steps:
Photo by Dottie Bogan, of Tony Bogan ascending the Del Williams staircase.
And after a week of dragging, drilling, and cursing:
Tony and Dottie stopped by to inspect our work. (We’d already departed for Illinois.)
I sent the following to the troops:
The meeting with the appraiser had already happened. His verdict arrived a week and a half later. The cabin is worth, he thinks, about $58,000. I think we could sell it for about $65K and maybe clear $60K. And “sell” is pretty much the idea, shared by all of us.
I arrived back in Illinois to the nastiest, most protracted Illinois budget mess that has happened since I’ve been “out here.”
As I write, there STILL is no official state (and therefore U of I) budget.
All I know is that there will be a transition…