Yes, it’s true. We moved up. Not in social status like the Jefferson’s, which the title is referring to, and if you don’t know what I’m writing about, look it up and find a fun TV Series from the past. No, we moved on up to higher living, meaning we now live on the third floor of a senior living community rather than in our big four-bedroom home. I promised you some blogs about our moving day, so settle in. To say it stressed me leaving our community where I had lived for sixty years, and in a home where my family and my husband and I lived for thirty years would be, to put it mildly. Let’s say it was more…falling apart stressed. The tears wouldn’t stop, partly from fear of the future, leaving people and a town we loved and cared about behind and from tiredness. Packing took me a full two months, most of it on my own with wonderful help some days from my kids and my friend, Donna. Donna was my voice of reason when I thought I didn’t need help, when I wanted to keep more than I could, and when I needed a shoulder to lean on. She is one of my sisters-in-heart. We felt so much support from friends near and far. Yet, when the brain is fuzzy from tiredness and wondering what to do, they could only do so much. Prayer got us through the rest. We had to move because of short-term memory loss for my spouse and aging bodies that could no longer do the upkeep on our property, and we didn’t have the means to hire it done. It was the right decision. We knew it in our hearts, but our thoughts kept getting in the way. Our realtor, Kim, was with us every step of the way taking the stress and burden off us, taking care of things that they normally wouldn’t, but she did it to make our life easier. I must admit I haven’t lived in an apartment since I was 19. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would the cats adjust? Would my husband and I adjust and especially the memory challenged part of his brain…would he be more agitated because just getting ready for the move was difficult for him and confusing. The night before we were to sign the papers for the closing, our house decided to give us a little sendoff which required repair people, and sent both of us into a tizzy. Our house was saying goodbye in a big way. Luckily, the buyer knew all the little quirks we had over the years and wasn’t fazed by it. I have written about my imperfect evergreen tree in the backyard before, still standing, still growing, but cut in half by the wear and tear of storms over the years. I looked strange, I know, walking into my backyard and putting my arms around the trunk of the evergreen tree and thanking it for being with us for the years we were in the house. We planted it the first year we moved in. I thanked it for the sanctuary for the birds, for the joy of its smell and for it simply being an imperfect tree reminding me imperfection has beauty. And I cried because for some reason it was hard to leave that tree. I then moved upstairs to my daughter’s former bedroom. While in high school she wrote her feelings on that door with poetry and bible verses. If I could have, I would have peeled the wood off those walls and took the door off the hinges and took it with me. It carried many memories of a teenager that grew into a beautiful young woman. Our boys had already become adults with lives of their own when we moved into our abode. Their teenage years and their memories were tied to our last home. I visited my porch I painted for my grandkids in bright blues and yellows and reds with  clouds on the ceiling, and closed my eyes imagining laughter from the past coming from their giggly personalities. It was time to put all to bed, including me, the night before the move. My daughter and son-in-in-law had been their earlier to pick up  dad, leaving me for a night of quietness and reflection and I certainly did that. Before they left, Kate asked to pray as a family, and we did. We held hands and thanked God for our history in the house, our family, friends, and blessings for the future. What better way to say good-bye to a home where we were given gifts of family, friendship and love than with thankful prayer? Next blogs, the things I kept.