Four Days

I woke up to my fourth and final day of solitary confinement at home. I was up before the sun this morning, so I didn't lose a minute of my last day at home.

Four days. Here are the stats:

• Two days of work, totalling 12 working hours
• One home cooked meal (okay, I turned on the BBQ, charred three hamburgers and four hot dogs which meant I didn't have to share this food fest and my BBQ'd meal lasted all weekend)
• Two outbound text messages
• One, three hour long phone visit with a friend
• One entire day on the couch, watching TV
• One hour long walk (the only time I have stepped off the property)
• One work-related drop by delivery
• One pizza delivery 

Friday was my son's first day back at University. I was home. Alone. The phone rang once. I didn't have to leave the house. It was an absolutely awesome day.

Saturday was a highly verbal day. My telephone conversation with a friend was the next best thing to "being there". We shared laughter, tears and easy conversation that goes hand in hand by knowing someone who has been there through every bump and turn of "life", the past forty four years. This was followed with a highly interactive day of working from home. Lots of phone calls, conferring and putting our heads together.

Sunday, I felt absolutely wordless. I walked with a friend near the day's end but I listened more than I spoke and did not have it in me to prolong the walk with a cup of coffee at the end. I returned from my walk at the same time I normally return home during my work week. I came home, climbed into my pajamas and called it a night.

Which leads me to Monday. Today. A day I plan to spend immersed in photographs and memories. One box is mine; the other box came from Mom's.

It's been three years without Mom. Three years and I still have not unpacked all the mementos I brought home with me. It just dawned on me this morning that perhaps the reason these boxes never got unpacked is due to my duties as an executor. I was buried in numbers instead of memories. It is time. I am ready, revitalized and raring to go.

These four days at home have been just what I needed, when I needed it the most.