The last Foreign Assignment

Last month: Dad and I stopping off for lunch after leaving Mom and heading back for more packing. I look as exhausted as I felt.

​Change.
Sometimes it tiptoes in the background of our lives….a favorite restaurant closes, a dear friend moves away, a cherished musician dies.   Other times, it stampedes into our lives, tearing us in pieces: we move or change careers, one of our treasured people dies, a relationship implodes. 
 
I am Day Three packing up my parents’ two-bedroom apartment.  My dad sits there, debating whether to bring every item I hold up….this glass, this picture, this shirt. It is exhausting for both of us, but he doesn’t want to leave behind anything with meaning.  
 
My parents have finally decided to move to an assisted living place in Tucson near my sister and her family. Jory and I had wanted them in Albuquerque, but since its altitude is 100 feet higher than Denver, there’s no way they could breathe well (I still struggle every time I go up my stairs, twenty times a day).
 
The elephant in the room is my mother’s absence.  She is in rehab. Would she want this vase? This pitcher? This table? Would she even notice if they were missing? Maybe she would (she still talks about things they didn’t take from their two-story home). Probably not. Regardless, we act as if she would not only notice, but would care.  This is for our sanity more than her opinion.
 
While there’s no question Mom is struggling, my heart breaks even more for Dad, who is aware of the struggle.  He carries on, alone.  He visits mom every day, dreading the way she will beg him to take her out of the rehab center, telling him he cannot leave without her.
 
He is also bracing himself to leave Boston. His home... Beantown, BoSox, St. John’s Prep, Amherst College, Hingham, Quincy, Hull even Marshfield. It will break him, which is why he has procrastinated the move, until he can no longer ignore the fact that he cannot manage mom anymore by himself, and cannot afford Massachusetts assisted care rates. 
 
My sister calls with the news that there is no room in the Tuscon one-bedroom apartment for his beloved five-foot long roll-top desk. “Another blow,” he sighs, utterly discouraged.
 
I take a deep breath. 
 
“Dad,” I finally say, “You and Mom resisted every move we ever made: from Boston to Texas, from Boston to Brazil, from Brazil to France. But you knew if you wanted to advance in the company, you had to go. So we moved and battled homesickness to the point of practically resenting the things that were foreign to us until they finally became familiar. Then we felt comfortable and didn’t want to leave any “foreign” place we moved.  Our foreign assignments are the best thing to happen to us as a family.”
 
He considers this. “You’re right,” he admits. 
 
“We’ve always ended up loving our moves. So this time, cut out the struggle. Let’s save time and embrace the new,” I suggest.  
 
I continue, “Accept this last foreign assignment, and you’ll be going back home soon enough, Dad. You’ll see your Mom and Dad again, your sisters, your aunts Grace, Henny & Carmel, your good friends.  I believe the soul travels, and your soul will come home again to Boston. You just have one more foreign assignment. So choose to enjoy it.”
 
Choosing to embrace the new is how I have come to love New Mexico so quickly. It’s a decision, not a feeling. Dad shows little interest in following my advice, and as I am finally posting this a month later, it’s safe to say, old patterns die hard. It explains a lot about how I was raised, and who I finally chose to become. Whether you see it as loyalty or stubbornness, Dad resists change at every turn. The only exception I can find is that although a proud Republican, impressively he refused to vote for Trump either time. 
 
He is cleaning out that gorgeous desk he cannot bring. “This” he says, “is for you.” It is a one-franc piece from our years in Paris: Marianne sowing seeds on one side, an olive branch on the flip side. It is the money we stubbornly compared to the dollar for our first two years in France, refusing to adapt to the legal tender as it was.  He has kept it, but the French franc is now obsolete: A currency no longer current. 
​
I pocket the change.