Moving weekend for my mom

Yesterday would have been my dad's 67th birthday. Yesterday was also the day that my mom moved from the apartment she and my dad had lived in for a decade or so before he died into a place of her own in a semi-retirement community. One of my sisters helped her do the move and it sounds like it was a very long day.

I've had a hard time with this change, even though it's not happening to me or anywhere around me. Part of what I'm struggling with is that the old place was where my dad was, so now all I've got left of him and that place are memories. This is doubly true because my mom moved into a smaller place and so got rid of a lot of stuff. So the couch that they'd had for years is gone as is the futon I used to sleep on. 

I suppose it seems silly, feeling sad because my mom has moved and is starting a life for herself. But because I don't go to Edmonton that often, my memories and feelings are tied up in the place where I spent time with my parents. Now that the place is completely gone from my family's life (and much of the furniture is, too), I suppose I'm grieving for the place, because it was a second home to me when I was in Edmonton. And in a way, I feel like I'm grieving for my dad all over again - especially because the move happened on his birthday. I still miss my dad.

I'm not all sad: I'm very happy for my mom. As I've said, she gets to start an entirely new life all on her own now. She's taken the chance to pare down her life to own only the items she really wants and to make her own choices. The place she's moved into has community lunches and dinners as well as activities - games and movie nights and stuff. But she has her own space with room to move around in. And she gets to keep her cat :) The move is a good thing for her, and that's what matters most.