Move On

And thus, it has come to pass, my father has secured residence back within the greater metroplex. Not too terribly far from we lived up until I was thirteen years old, in fact. He remarked about the auspice of full circles. In a little over a month, he will be putting the Rub 'al Khali behind him. Perhaps forever and ever, amen.

"I need to get out here," my father said. "I'm turning into an old man. I can see it in my face."

I am happy for him. He needs to move on. Out there, in the badlands of eastern Colorado...that was my mother and the life my parents had together. My mother is gone now and my father needs to keep on living. He'll be closer to my brother and sister. It'll only take me perhaps an hour, instead of the usual two, to visit. You can catch the excitement in his voice.

Sometime in the near future, I'll be making the hop to the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands for what I hope will be one of the last times. We'll be cleaning and packing. In some ways, I imagine it'll be like when we moved my grandmother or when we'd go through her storage unit after she walked on, or when we were packing up my mother's clothes; a mixture of sadness and catharsis. So it goes.

I am happy for my father. Another aspect of starting over, like phoenix raising out of the ashes of loss. It'll be nice for him to be closer, instead of a daytrip away. Still, I confess, part of me dreads the upcoming excavation, and the possible ghosts of memory it might stir up.