The Next Chapter

Shortly after everything had settled from my dad's death and funeral, Whit and I had talked about the next steps for my mom. If she would want to stay at her house, or if she would want to move in with us (but not in our house cuz it's great for our family of four, but we could see it very easily becoming too cramped for all five of us). We looked around to see if we could find a bigger house with a nice main floor master or some sort of space for my mom to use and be comfortable in, while still having all the space that we needed. We came across these new houses near us, in neighboring cities, and we took a look. They're called "NextGen" homes and have a separate but attached in-law suite/apartment to the main house. This particular floor plan we would discover, had the best NextGen suite. After showing it to my mom, she loved it and we all agreed this would be the perfect space for all of us, where we could be together but still have our separate areas and not get in each other's way. We signed the contract at the end of February, and were told they would break ground in April, with the completion of the home in early/mid October. It was official, we would all be moving in together!

Immediately we started getting my mom's house ready to sell. We had some minor work done, retiling the kitchen and foyer, painting the interior, and replacing the formica counter tops in the bathrooms with granite. After what felt like forever, we put her house officially on the market on Wednesday night, April 24th. And immediately had showings the following day, and by Friday evening we had our first full price offer. And we are officially under contract!! I was so very nervous about selling my mom's house. Ranch homes are rare and ppl are definitely looking for them, but they're also very expensive, and the percentage of home buyers willing to pay that much for a ranch is small. I'd like to think the work we put into it really helped sell it, cuz I personally thought the house looked great! The closing date is May 31, so now we are just waiting, and hoping that all goes well this next month plus.

I was walking with my mom earlier this month, and as always, we talked a lot about other things but our chats always circle back to my dad, and tears were shed again. But I reminded my mom, this is just the next chapter in her story. And it's an exciting one, altho sad without Dad here to share it.

In other news, a friend I made in Book Club many years ago, recently posted on her instagram about "celebrating" England's Mother's day without her mom (or mum as they say :) ) and I knew she had lost her mum but didn't know when or anything. We started chatting a bit and having someone to share this experience of losing a parent is quite cathartic, a word I keep hearing on a podcast that this friend also talked about called Griefcast. It is very cathartic talking and hearing about other people going thru grief and how they cope and finding you feel similar things and realizing this process of grief is so universal. It's been just another part of my healing, and I welcome it.

So now we are on a mission to get our own house ready as we clear out my mom's very soon. Not looking forward to that, since we've lived here almost 14 years and had 2 kids in this house, which amounts to a LOT of stuff. :( But in the meantime, I'm feeling much relief that my mom's house went under contract so quickly, and have my fingers and toes crossed that all goes smoothly with the loan process and we have a quick and easy closing at the end of May. Here's to the next chapter.