Well, here we are, folks! I arrived in my old home town last night at about 10 pm local time. My travels were reasonable uneventful, with the exception of the second leg of my flight where we hit turbulence that saw our plane shift and drop dramatically. This was followed by a “reminder” from the flight crew to take note of our nearest exit in the event of an evacuation. Way to make people scared, you bunch of assholes! But I digress… Our arrival was worsened by the fact that despite being boasted as an international airport, the Greater Moncton International Airport apparently only had one arrival port and one ground crew.
After waiting for about 30 minutes on the tarmac, we were finally able to disembark and I made my way over to the car rental counter. Much to my surprise and to the contrary of what I believed, I hadn’t prepaid for my week’s rental. Fantastic. I was cold, tired and spent from my travels but I still had a 3-hour drive to reach the north shore and my home town. BY the time I arrived, the town was dark and foreboding with only the mildest hint of the rough Atlantic waters rushing and crashing off to my right. I got away with a quick stop at a local gas station for a few energy drinks and sugar-free gatorades.
My first night in my mother’s old apartment was disturbing. It was empty, both physically and metaphorically. With my mother now in the care of the nursing home and the majority of her furniture gone, I was left in a cold, barren room to stray and sleep as the older gentleman above the bedroom felt it necessary to stomp around his apartment as though he were still in the war and marching pin formation. I managed to get about two or three hours’ sleep before I awoke to my alarm and began assessing my activities for the day.
My uncles actually did an amazing job art downsizing and getting rid of the majority of things within the apartment. With the exception of a couple of arm chairs and bedside tables, the remainder is all the kitchen equipment, which I’ll need to assess and decide what to do with. The rest is personal photos, paperwork and documents that I’ll need to go through and decide what to keep and what not. It’ll certainly fill my week, in combination with taking time to visit with my folks, of course.
I won’t try to inundate you with photos and they honestly wound’s do the scenery justice, in any event. It’s hard to express the emotions that being back home evoke. The ocean, the mountains, the salty air and the ambiance… It ellicits memories of a simpler time, when my father could walk, my mother still had full mental capacity and my brother was still alive. A time before the shredded remnants of my family included both parents in a nursing home, my brother in a grave and me; the last one standing to try and hold all the remaining pieces together,
It’s going to be a pretty somber week and I’ll try not to bum all my readers out throughout the week as I post about all of this. But the reality is that there is a lesson to learn about everything in life, even the negative. It’s gleaning those lessons and taking them with us, moving forward, that makes the difference between suffering through the bad times, or growing and motivating ourselves TOWARDS the better times. Food for thought… ☯️
The Blogging Buddhist 