On Thursday, my family and I paid a loving tribute to my mother when her ashes were interred with my father’s at Saratoga National Cemetery in New York. One year earlier to the day, my father’s Military Service took place at the same location on a day that was just as beautiful and warm.
My mom passed at age 97 from complications of Congestive Heart Failure and a stroke she suffered in November on the same day I was making my move from Georgia to the log home in Florida. She passed peacefully in my brother’s home on the day I was traveling north to spend some time with her as she was failing fast. She passed knowing I was on my way.
On Friday, the day after my mom’s Service, we celebrated the second birthday of my Great Niece, my mom’s first and only Great Granddaughter, Spider Fonteyn. I’m happy that my mom got to spend time with her on the occasion of Spi’s First Birthday last year and also during the last hours of my mom’s life in late February just before she passed.
It’s been a nostalgic visit north, a refreshing change from the hot and humid pre-summer days of Northern Florida. Everything here is lush and green and the gardens in full bloom. I know that summer here is way too short. Last time I was here in January I got to witness my first snow in four years.
With my mom’s Service complete, I now return South to continue to settle in back in Florida. Unfortunately, I also face a big challenge with a corporation threatening to claim a fairly generous portion of my backyard of my home in Georgia. I’m seeking legal consult, but it isn’t a battle I need in my life at the moment. I look at every challenge as a learning experience and hope that some compromise can be found.
To help steady my mind, I look forward to the delivery of a swim spa that will be placed on a concrete slab that has been curing for 30 days on the property of the log house I’ve called home for 6 months now. That place has been a sanctuary and a great distraction for me and now with an aquatic feature, it will become an oasis. My late father managed a number of county swim clubs back in the day and my mother was a fan of synchronized swimming; summers were all about hours spent in, or by, town pools and in our own backyard, so this is a fitting and much appreciated addition to my life.
I wish all the fathers and father-like figures a lovely Father’s Day weekend. I know for many reading it will be another holiday that brings a mixture of sadness and good memories of what once was. I try to remain positive and energized despite all challenges. In the end we are all we have, really, and we must choose where we place our energies and time. I’ve worked too hard to let a greedy land developer who is fixing to ruin a place that was my sanctuary where the hoot of an owl and call of the whippoorwill brought comfort during dark times. Where Rich planted his one and only peach tree that bore one peach per year.
They see a disputed property line that blocks their “progress”, but I see a battle for my peace of mind and the rights of someone who’s paid taxes on that land for over four years, and paid for its maintenance; a battle during which I know Rich, and my parents, will be sending me strength, unleashing the street smarts that every Jersey Girl inherits. If all else fails, I will float on among the palms and pines of Florida, grateful that I am entrenched in a place of great beauty.
As my favorite quote goes, “Every day is a holiday, some holidays are better than others.” Go and make new memories if life allows.
