Time is an ally.
And other stuff my mom used to say
A friend was talking about doing a final walk through on a house she sold. Bittersweet, she said, but exciting. They were downsizing and traveling in an RV (where have I heard that before?) Sounds cool, but I know better. I resist the urge in my Crone Years to offer my advice. Okay not ALWAYS but I don’t want to ruin everything for everyone all the time.
Surely they won’t get hit by a car with no brakes in the desert and flip and roll their van and lose all their shit but walk away and look for their dogs with strangers and get stuck in a town in Mexico. Surely not. (*buy more insurance than you think you’ll need, I mention, and get contents insurance too since you’re driving around with all your computer gear. Ahem. Bon voyage!)
I don’t really remember the walk through of the last house I sold, the Hacienda which is weird, I lived there for 14 years! I still dream of that property. Only outside though. And mostly my trees. I have flashbacks of caring for 7 acres and the insanity that is a woman who read too many Martha Stewart Living magazines in the 90s. Chicken tending, organic certification seeking, no mow permaculturing, fence building, wild crafting, dog saving, food growing, house renovating lunatic.
I remember the closing only because it was scheduled at 9 and we didn’t leave until noon because the kooky buyer’s agent (always the buyer’s agent) forgot their lender was in California and the time difference postponed our Georgia funding. I remember going to get Egg McMuffins and Sausages for Brady, Mr. Ribby and me. My minivan was packed to the roof with whatever I didn’t sell over a 3 month downsize and I had built doggo platforms after I took the seats out.
The attorney’s office was dark and musty so I waited outside despite the colder than you’d think temperatures. There were Christmas candies in an amber bowl that I presumed were from 2018 because I sold in 2019 but Clarksville, Georgia was frozen in time. Could have easily been 1982 candy. I don’t remember anything else.
May 4, 2016 was a different story. My mom had recently died in the previous October and even though we had run through what I was supposed to do over and over again as the Trustee, Executor, Power of Attorney last child black sheep, I was blank. Bank accounts, pensions, paperwork, property sales, pander to older siblings I don’t even know who are dicks, ship chandeliers and diamonds to sister who never EVER considered helping, get carpet ripped out because mom was fancy but in her last years incontinent and carpet doesn’t let you forgive anything. Repaint, refloor, listen to how I shouldn’t have bothered to repaint and refloor and haul, estate sale, haul more, rent dumpsters, yard sale, donate, empty house, get offer, done.
But that final walk through?