My father was came home from the rehabilitation facility yesterday following his hip replacement surgery. Once again the healing process lies ahead. The goal: an independent life. The question: how to create a life that, for the first time since he was a young man, does not include my mother?
He ordered a hospital bed so he does not have to negotiate the stairs from his bedroom to the upstairs. The bed is in my mother's office. The room where, as a clinical psychologist, she spent thousands of hours working with clients to overcome the hurts of their past. The room that she designed. The chair where she sat. The desk where she worked. Her father's clock on the desk. The photos she carefully arranged. Her paperweight collection. The bookshelves that hold the books which informed her ideas. She is gone, but her presence still inhabits this space. May this space perform for my father the healing she helped engender in her clients.
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