My mother-in-law Peggy closed the sale of her old house today, a former farmhouse dating in part from the late 1800s that she and my father- and brother-in-law brought back from the dead back in the 1980s.

The house holds so very many memories for the whole family.  But it just didn’t make any sense for Peggy to stay there alone after my father-in-law Charles died a year and a half ago.

And so it’s a sad day today.  Really, though, a much sadder day for me personally was last July when my wife and I visited the house for the last time.  Almost all the furniture was gone, so it wasn’t the home anymore where we’d spent so many holidays and vacations.  But it was still final reminder of just how shocking and wrong it seemed that it had all come to an end so suddenly.

But there’s a bit of a happy story behind it all, too — Peggy’s.  She not only had to deal with the loss of the husband she’d loved since she was a teenager, but she did so while taking care of her rapidly failing mother-in-law.  When my wife’s grandmother died early last year and bequeathed Peggy her house, my mother-in-law moved into that house in town, quickly making some fairly major changes to make it her own.  And put the country house up for sale.

And then had to deal with the ups and downs of trying to sell an ancient house that had been modified oh so many times over the years.  Inspections and improvements and near-disasters when it seemed it was going to siphon away more money than it could ever bring in a sale.  How many times did it seem better and smarter just to tear the old place down?  I”m sure I don’t know.

I’m also sure Peggy has had countless episodes of anguish and feeling sorry for herself and hating the world.  She is just human, after all.  But I think she’s shown superhuman strength in actively building her new life and persevering through what’s had to be an awfully trying, and at times terribly lonely, year and a half.  Yes, today she had to finalize that she’s truly moved on from the home she had for all those years with Charles.  But at the same time, at least some of what’s been so trying is now behind her.

 So this post is for her.  Mother, I’m proud of you and I love you very much.