Salt water was on tap.  That was yesterday.  I dragged a trailer around town transferring the material world of my mother and daughter.  My mother is about to move into assisted living.  My oldest daughter moved out, again.  For my mother it will be the final assist before she goes on to a more permanent place where no assistance will be needed.  Dependence in the freedom of perfect Love will be her stay.

I saw a lot of my siblings as we moved stuff.  One sister underlined, with a slight shake in her voice, “How does one measure a life…really?”  She is the one who has been compiling information about our family tree.  She has been finding branches and leaves and bits of bark of family that have been long forgotten (or never known).  Her question probably was in the glove compartment of all our minds as we all pitched in.

I thought (no offense to my siblings), who are all these aged people helping move toiletries and chairs and giraffe figurines?  I noticed for the first time just last week skin dangling underneath my chin.  It was as if we were loading time into a cargo trailer only to find dust on it when we emptied it.

The departure, if God graces one with long life, is so much like the arrival in reverse…Obviously.  Friends and family shower a baby and gather things for arrival.  Friends and family dry off a life by dispersal.  Estate sales pop up everywhere. It is our turn yet we would rather give up our place in line and move to the back.

The tears came at an odd time (I thought anyway).  I dropped off my mother’s table and chairs at my daughter’s new apartment.  As I said goodbye and kissed her neck all the movement moved me.  I apologized to her.  “It’s just that there is a lot of movement going on lately.”

My eyes felt the after burn all day as I drove from one place to another and another.  The cargo trailer ended up at church chained and locked.  Yeah, that would be a good place for stuff  to be parked.