July 25 – 27, 1969:
After Nate’s graduation, the 8-hour drive together to his parents’ home was pure pleasure. As he drove, I studied my handsome groom, tanned and muscular after his hard physical weeks under the Army’s tutelage. He had never looked better, and my eyes drank him in.
Throughout the weekend with his parents, we shared gourmet meals lovingly made by his mother, and talked about wedding plans. Nate and I took late-night walks around his old neighborhood, strolling hand-in-hand with frequent stops to give and receive more of those stored-up kisses. It was fun to hear stories of his childhood, and I could easily picture him biking down Main Street with his grade school buddies.
Toward the close of the weekend, we were back in the car driving the 4 hours to Wilmette where a massive clean-up was under way after my folks’ garage sale. Their moving date was 3 days hence, and the last big push to empty their home was at hand.
Nate and I had begged out of our first counseling week at the church camp to help Mom and Dad, and it’s a good thing we did. They needed all hands on deck. After working non-stop for many weeks readying the house, both of them were depleted, carrying on by grit alone.
The peaceful calm of Nate’s home evaporated as we joined forces with Mom, Dad, Mary, Bervin, and brother Tom, sorting, lifting, hauling, shoving, and driving load after load to other locations. In the process, Nate and I inherited a small apartment-sized stove, for which we were grateful. It was stored at the next-door-neighbors’ house, since we hadn’t yet looked for an apartment in Champaign.
In retrospect, I can hardly believe we had insisted on a big wedding so close to my parents’ big move. The word “selfish” springs to mind. Today I am the age my father was when this unfolded, and just reading about it makes me tired. I’m grateful their double duty didn’t swamp them completely. That move was difficult for them in every way.
They were leaving a home that had been the place where my brother, sister, and I had grown from children into adults. It’s where all of our youthful dates originated and where our teenage pals hung out, day… and night. It’s where Mom produced hundreds of dinners, parties, and celebrations, happily including our friends in whatever was happening. It’s where Dad walked out the front door every morning to his office in the Loop and walked back in every night at 6:15 to Mom’s squeals of delight and her kisses. And it’s where he finally retired at the age of 70.
In addition to the move and the wedding, Mom’s 3 children were all stepping into new lives, leaving a mother who’d loved every minute of parenting them and had no interest in an empty nest. (None of us have a single memory of her ever saying no.) She had wanted a dozen kids, but when that couldn’t happen, she told us she’d just had the 3 best instead.
And we all knew that when moving day came, for these reasons and many others, Mom would struggle to walk out the door.
“This is what the Lord says – Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isaiah 43:18-19)
