moving day

I had just completed the last carpet cleaning job of the 1980 Christmas rush. It was time to celebrate. So, I was building a nice fire in the the living room. Suddenly a piece of wood rolled out of the fireplace. Flames leaped up toward the ceiling as our guest Chris K and I stood transfixed waiting for the curtains to catch fire. Meanwhile, Nancy quickly ran up stairs, grabbed a blanket, sprinted back to the living room, and smothered the loose flames. She saved the house. Not only that she stayed up far into the night repainting the living room ceiling, so that the evidence of my foolishness would not face me after we came back from Kansas after Christmas. She was always keeping the place from going up in smoke, and then creating beauty amid my chaotic impulsiveness.

Nancy welcomed countless New Life teens, visitors from WHM, and neighborhood kids into our home, prepared thousands of meals, washed dishes and clothes, and still found time to paint impressionist art on the walls below our new kitchen cabinets. In short, she made the old twin house on Easton Road a beautiful sanctuary for all who stopped by.

Today at 1:45 she left that house for the last time for the short ambulance ride to Keystone Hospice in Wyndmoor. KJ bravely climbed into the ambulance to keep her company while Josh and Terry Traylor helped me gather her stuff--and myself to undertake the admitting process. A bit later it was it was good to see her showered and changed in her room. KJ and I had helped her cover the last part of her journey on Easton Road this summer, and it was time to let other becoming "primary care givers."But tonight when the Phillies' Pat Burrell singled to Right Field, the house felt pretty empty. Then KJ and I remembered how much Nancy had given us. Come to think about it, her love will color these walls for a long time to come.