The last of the firsts™

Today was my birthday.

Many of you may remember that I don't just have a birthday, a birthday week or even a birthday month. No, I have a birthday season.

Birthday season starts the day after my stepson's birthday. It's not right to celebrate my birthday before his birthday is over. (But apparently, I have no problem encroaching on his birthday month. Sorry, Bryan.) And technically, I could claim “birthday season" all the way up to the day before our anniversary, which is August 13. If I wanted to do something Vic didn't, I'd say, “But it's my birthday season!" I didn't—I usually stopped being bratty at the end of June—but I could have.

But in the past few years, even I grew weary of birthday season. We scaled back our celebrations and really only did stuff on the week I took off from work—and even then, it was just a cake, a nice dinner, and a card. (Presents came whenever I would show him something I liked, and he would say, “Would that make a nice birthday present?")

It certainly made getting through today easier. That and the busy-ness of the move.

As I was talking to my friend Michelle, I mentioned that the one-year anniversary was barely a month away now, and she observed that this would be the last of the firsts—I've now been through my first anniversary without Vic; my first Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day; my first time not celebrating his birthday; my first time not getting a card from Bella on Mother's Day. And she suggested that we should trademark that. The last of the firsts™. 😂

I wasn't really dreading the day. As with all my other firsts, Vic was such an attentive, loving husband, that every day was like my birthday. In that regard, this day was no different than any other day since he died. I bought myself an extravagant present—a new phone, which I was certain if I had pointed it out to him, he would have asked, “Would you like it for your birthday?" I spent his money on it. (Yes, I still have our money separated into his, mine and ours. Don't judge me.) I bought some chocolates. I had cards from friends and family as well as a few presents. I didn't buy a cake (mostly because I just didn't have time to pick out the perfect one—one that he would have gotten me, because he was always the cake procurer, as my friend Seth called it), but my neighbor brought one over for me. (Why am I leaving this neighborhood???) I got lots of calls and texts and emails. I took the night off from working on the move and just watched a movie and had some cake.

It was a good day.

 

I made it all the way to almost 10 p.m. ... before I started sobbing. It was at the part of the movie where the two people who had fallen in love were parting ways—him back to England, she staying in the States—and I was sad for them, so my eyes were already welling up. (It's not a good movie if I don't break out at least one tissue.) I don't know why that was the moment when my thoughts turned to my wish when I blew out my candle earlier in the day (yes, I put a candle in my cake, sang happy birthday to myself, and made a wish). It came out of the blue: “I wish Vic were here." I didn't think much about it at the time—it was such an obvious, pedestrian wish—but all of a sudden, I just became acutely aware that he was not, in fact, here. My wish did not come true, even though I blew out all my candle! 😉

Then I pulled myself together and reached into my gratitude bin for the 36 birthdays he was here. I went back through his pictures to find birthdays past, and I found years and years of ice cream cakes, poppy seed cakes with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting, and even a sticky bun (not a whole cake, just one delicious sticky bun). My favorite:

Years and years of perfect presents (he had a knack early on of knowing what I would like, which turned into taking me on shopping sprees when I quit my job to go to college and didn't have any money to go shopping, which turned into just buying things online when we both got too lazy to get out of our sweatpants). My favorite:

(This is a Time Turner from Harry Potter. He purchased it early in the year and hid it. We had to schedule a major heart surgery for him on my birthday that year, and the afternoon before we left for the hospital, he was running around like a madman. I asked him why, and he wouldn't tell me. I asked if I could help, and he said no. Finally, I heard an “aha!" from the basement, and he came trotting up the stairs (we were both able to trot up the stairs at that point), already wrapped present in tow. “Your birthday present. In case I die." (We were always very pragmatic about the fact that either of us could die at any time.) He asked me to get myself a salted caramel cake from Robin Chocolates and bring my present the morning of the surgery. He had been blabbing to all the nurses about my present the entire time he had been in the hospital and wanted to show it to them before the surgery. You know. In case he died. I opened it to find the Time Turner—a device that Hermione used to go back in time—and he said, “If I had a real Time Turner and could go back in time, I wouldn't change a thing. Happy birthday.")

And years and years of lunches, and trips to the Botanic Gardens and the Zoo and Estes Park, and chocolates (they were never part of the presents—always just an extra thing).

We didn't have parties, although we always celebrated with our families. He didn't get me elaborate presents or try to surprise me with some big thing. It was just like every other day: He was there, making me feel loved.

In all those years, I found one single picture with him in it.

He was always my best birthday present.

Sooooo, this happened

 

As you all know, Vic and I loved our house. When we first got together, we were both flat broke. I could barely afford $300 a month rent, and Vic was sleeping on the couch where his kids lived.

When we moved in together, we had a little more money—but not a lot. Both of Vic's kids moved in with us in a townhouse-style apartment. After Laurie joined the Navy, Vic and Bryan and I moved into a garden-level apartment where crickets chirped right outside the bedroom window all. summer. long.

We hated renting. The places we rented were home to us, but rent just feels like flushing money down the toilet, so as soon as we felt we could afford it, we bought a townhouse. It was nice for two (Bryan had moved to New York by this point), and because we owned it, we could have pets. My first Mother's Day in the new townhouse, Vic took me to the Humane Society and let me pick out a cat. Five days later, I thought she might be lonely, so Vic took me to the Humane Society and let me pick out a kitten. We were in heaven.

But.

Because we were still ... let's just say not rich, the townhouse wasn't in the best of neighborhoods. In fact, every neighborhood we had lived in up to that point wasn't the best. Whenever we took walks, we started by walking out of the neighborhood and admiring the single-family homes adjacent to our neighborhood.

About 13 years after moving into our townhouse, our property manager (who was also a Realtor) said we could afford to buy a home—and he was right. It took a year to sell our townhouse (isn't that a quaint notion nowadays?!), but when we did, we had already found the perfect house for us.

Great neighborhood? Check. Move-in ready? Check. View? Check. Affordable? Well, let's just say we could afford it if we were careful with our money.

The first 6 years were a a dream come true. We had never been happier. We even became grand-duck-parents when a mallard pair had ducklings in the back yard. Then Vic died. While he was in the hospital coming back from the dead and then recovering from his death over the next few months, the yard got weedier, the house got dustier, and things generally fell into a bit of disrepair. As he got better, he started fixing that up. Then the next year, he got cancer. While he was in treatment for that, the yard got weedier, the house got dustier, and things generally fell into a bit of disrepair. We were fortunate to have Vic's sister gift us with a housekeeper throughout his entire treatment and several months after, but that was all that was being done.

The next few years got better. Vic got better. Until he didn't. His heart started acting up, and then it started acting up some more, and then it started acting up some more. He had major heart surgery, and that made things better, but taking care of the house was a much bigger chore than it used to be. We hired people to help, but we were really only doing the bare minimum.

In 2019, he got cancer. Again. A small surgery led to a very large surgery that led to feeding tubes and pneumonia and weakness. This cancer just broke him. So the yard got weedier, the house got dustier, and things generally fell into a bit of disrepair. We were so fortunate to have my friend send us a housekeeper to do a deep clean of the house (and we loved her so much that we kept her around) and a weeder to weed the yard. And really, Vic was just never able to take care of the house the way he used to. (And because I work full-time and was picking up other tasks that he would have normally done, I could not take care of the house the way it needed.)

This is when I started suggesting we try to find a new house. Smaller, maybe, easier yard to take care of, definitely one floor. My "suggestions" became more insistent after he fell down the stairs onto the hardwood floor—no injuries, but my imagination ... . He would have none of it. He loved this house and he never wanted to leave. He considered it a defeat—like, if we left, it meant that the cancer/heart won. So I hired more help—another weeder, a poop scooper, a gardener, etc.

As you know, he fulfilled his wish—he never left this house.

I love this house too, but I am just one person. The yard is too much to take care of, and it's harder to find people to take care of it. Plus it's expensive to live in—three stories of west-facing windows wreak havoc on the air-conditioning budget. And it's getting older, so there is just that much more work that needs to be done.

I started looking for a ranch home in March. The first one got away, but by April, my Realtor was taking me to three or four houses a week. One day, he sent me the winner. It was on the high end of my budget and was probably going to incite a bidding war, so we declined to make an offer. A week later, though, their first offer had fallen through, and the seller's agent was texting my Realtor to see if I was still interested. With the ball more in our court, we made an offer contingent on the selling of my house (something we could never have asked for even a month ago), and the seller immediately accepted it.

(Interested in the new house? See it here.)

A week later, that sign went up in my yard.

(It must be noted at this point that my house of 18 years had to be decluttered in three days, and I could not take off work because I had just returned from a week-long vacation. I am beyond grateful for the help of my sister, who did quite a bit of decluttering, including going to the post office and taking a load of clothes for donation; my sister-in-law, who planted my pots so my house would have curb appeal; and my friends Paulette and Larry, who also helped with all that decluttering and carried heavy boxes out to the garage while I sat in front of a computer screen for three days. Not to mention that my entire yarn stash takes up the top of a queen size bed in Larry and Paulette's guest room. Not to mention the workstation they set up for me in their basement so I could still work when I had showings. Not to mention the coolers they loaned me when my refrigerator crapped out on me.)

The first week was ridiculously slow. Two showings, no offers. So we dropped the price. Suddenly the showings increased—and so did the interest. We received an offer late one Saturday that was rescinded on Sunday before we even had an opportunity to accept it. (Home buying/selling is not for people who like the merry-go-round; fortunately, I've always been a roller coaster fanatic.) But the universe works in mysterious ways, and just an hour later, we had another offer. A better offer. A much better offer. Which we accepted.

The inspections are complete, and everything is moving at warp speed. Getting things set up at the new house—utilities, insurance, carpet cleaning and replacement, move-in clean. Marie Kondoing this house and prepping for the move.

On June 28, I will be moving out of a house that saw the absolute best years of my life. I would be lying if I said it was having no effect on me. My first response to that first offer (before it failed) was elation—immediately followed by profound sadness. This house was never just a house. It was a dream turned into a reality, and we couldn't have asked for more. But ... it is just a house. The memories we made here won't stay in the house—they will come with me. The views won't stay in the house—I have all the pictures Vic took from the bedroom window. The love won't stay in the house—it is in my heart. Bella and I will bring everything with us to the new house. And in the end, Vic always wanted what was best for me, so I know he would approve.

To close, I leave you with a few of the magnificent views from this house that I will be taking with me.

To all who have supported me on this wild ride, thank you. You gave me the strength to make this very hard decision. Much love to you all!