My sister told me, "it's a brand new chapter of life for us", as we hugged goodbye. Her vehicle was packed to the top with the last remaining items she'd retrieved, before we did a final walk-through and locked the house. "Definitely for you", I replied. She looked at me intently and said, "it is for you, too".

The house, my parents' house, was where she'd lived for the better part of the last decade, caring for my dad after my mom died of Alzheimer's in a memory care facility. It was the house mom and dad chose together in the early 90's, the one in which they had hoped to share a lengthy retirement together, doing the things they loved. A house in the mountains, on a hilly acre of woods, surrounded by the birds and wildlife they loved to watch, feed, and talk about.

The house was full of their energy, the things they treasured; pictures of family, antiques made or owned by long-dead ancestors, a mind-boggling variety of books, lots of flowering plants in the windows. They both loved being in the living room and looking out the big picture window, watching the incredible variety of birds that visited an eccentric-but-charming array of feeders they'd positioned near that window. Along with the white squirrels, which dad had a love-hate relationship with, and the deer and raccoons, who they also fed.

After my mom was gone, that's where my dad spent most of his time. Especially as he gradually became less ambulatory, and his multiple car wrecks caused us to insist that he stop driving.  If it hadn't been for my newly-widowed sister moving in there to manage the household (and later his care), dad never would've had the gift of being able to remain there. I was 30 minutes away, working full-time, and trying to handle my own small organic fruit farm. My brother, in TN.

The living room with the big view of the natural world that he loved so much was also where he died. Several feet from the window, in a rented hospital bed that hospice had ordered. He was beyond seeing out the window at that point, but part of him knew where he was, knew that family was there with him.

And this treasured home of my parents is what we spent the past 2 and a half painful, chaotic months trying to clear out. Daily difficult decisions about what to keep, what to donate, the mountain of family photos spanning generations, what to shred, what could be sold to satisfy the probate court, dealing with the horrendous consequences of an incompetent and/or corrupt estate lawyer and a hopelessly mangled estate plan. But that's a story for another day.

The house stands empty now, ready to be sold. Bare walls, bare windows, rooms that echo. It's only in my mind that the gentle sound of my mother's laughter, and my dad's booming hello reverberates. Only in my mind do I see the fireplace burning, family holiday gatherings full of amazing homemade goodies, the beautifully decorated Christmas trees that my dad took so much pride and pleasure in. And later, his shaky, shuffling steps with a cane, on the slow trek to the kitchen table.

In reality, it's all gone. All that's here is a startlingly empty house. And silence. 

So I go home to my own little sanctuary and my own silence, accompanied as usual by the multiple losses in my own life these past few months. Struggling to keep moving forward, to focus on the right now, just breathing, and putting one foot in front of the other. It's a new chapter, right?