I recently wrote a column titled ”Farewell, Home Sweet Home” about my emotions surrounding my parents putting my childhood home on the market. Well, it got real, real fast last weekend. The house is now under contract and my parents move into their new senior apartment is just around the corner.
Suddenly the realization became clear that our trip north to spend Easter with family would be the last time we would gather in MeeMaw and PapPap’s home, my childhood home, for the past 61 years. It was lump-in-the-throat time as the inevitable flashbacks were about to come fast and furiously. It’s definitely not the last time that we will visit family in Pittsburgh, but it is the last time we will celebrate a holiday together in a home that we have known since 1965.
When we left South Carolina for Pittsburgh on Thursday, I confidently told my wife that it was just a part of life and no biggie, and I wouldn’t get all emotional. Those of you who know me well can stop snickering, because of course I was going to get all emotional. I am, after all, just a hopeless romantic and sentimental fool inside the tough-guy hockey exterior…