A New Beginning

The last few weeks many changes have been taking place and with those changes have been many more visits transpiring from Quincy folk to Georgia and Georgia folk to Quincy. Loads of furniture have traveled those all too familiar roads from one place to another, and things that were common staples years ago, will now be put to use again.

There was an attic full of old relics, pictures, and furniture – some of it even dating back to my own teenager days – that were used by myself so many years ago. I’ll admit feelings of melancholy occurred a couple of times as things were unwrapped and I was left standing looking at articles that my own hands touched more than 38 years ago now.

My youngest son’s new home is just about ready to move into – it’s been painted through-out the inside, the bathroom has been re-walled, and the kitchen has been re-floored.  The outside shutters, front door and railing have also been re-painted and trees/bushes have been cut-down and dug-up.

So although he hasn’t moved in quite yet – it’s already full of “new” furniture to help him fill-up a new home, pictures to make it feel warm and lived-in, and several rugs to place on the hardwood floors that will be cold come winter time.

But I too, will also have an empty room in my home – so I too, have also been receiving “new” furniture to fill my own empty spaces. It will all start happening in the next week or so – the final round will begin, and although I think I am ready, only time will tell once I have an empty room where a very active young man used to live.

What in the world will it look like without fishing gear, hunting guns, diving masks and duck calls lying about all over the place? Or his nightstand that stays piled with historical stories of president’s and wars, and his book-marked bible? Or the piles of clothes scattered here and there that always leave me wondering what is clean and what is not. Or the six pairs of cowboy boots that stand in a line, tucked just under one side of his bed, that I ALWAYS inevitably stump one of my toes on.

It’s the same room that I pass on the way to my own bedroom just across the hall, where I could lie in my bed and hear him if he called out, if he was coughing or sick, or just sit up and know at 1am, because the door was now shut, that he was home safe and sound.

I have already bought a new bedspread for my about-to-be guest room, it’s bright with colorful flowers. And now I have some “new” pictures, lamps, and a chair that were given to me from my folks that will go beautifully with what I already have – for a nice fresh start.

But my heart has to wonder, if at first, Zach will feel as strange in his new home, as I will with my newly-decorated room? Nahhhhhh….he’ll probably never even look back.