Kathy and I arrived in Hatfield, MA this afternoon around 3:00. We traveled 1,500 miles to get here and it took three days of travel. Grateful to have arrived safely.
This morning Kathy and I had breakfast with a dear Facebook friend of mine. We met each other about 15 years ago on-line through the Prayer Shawl Ministry website and chat room and somehow connected. We have written each other, walked each other through major life changes, and became great friends all via the internet. It was such a treat to meet her face-to-face for the first time. She is as beautiful in person as she comes across on the internet. Made my day to get to hug her. I look for joy on trips like this and I found it this morning. I so enjoyed our conversation and am grateful she took the time to join us for breakfast.
The drive today was traffic jam free! We hit lots of construction sites that slowed us down but traffic was flowing. Had light drizzle most of the day although the sun broke through this afternoon. Drove in heavier rain this evening coming to our hotel room. We stopped at a local Mart and got peanut butter, jelly, bread, frozen pizza, coffee and beer to sustain us over the next couple of work days. Restaurants are not plentiful in the small town where Max lives.
We met with Max’s dear friend at his apartment this afternoon at 3:00. His friend shared with us the information Max had given her including papers, insurance information, etc. We enjoyed talking with her and so appreciate all she has done for Max over the years. They have been friends for over 30 years and she will feel his absence greatly.
After his friend left, Kathy and I did a brief survey of the job in front of us and looked through some of the important paperwork. We decided we were both tired so left for the day. We found a nice restaurant in Amherst to eat at and then found a room for the night. We are both wiped out and were not in a good place to make any decisions about what to do with stuff tonight. We will get a good night’s sleep and hit it hard tomorrow.
Tomorrow we will go through everything more thoroughly and set aside anything we want to bring home. Max had a couple of friends that might be interested in some of his books. They are to get hold of me by Sunday if they are interested in doing so.
Max’s friend gave us the name of a service that will come and make everything go away. They even do the packing. We will decide tomorrow if that is the way we want to go. If it is, we will see if they can come next Monday or Tuesday and empty everything we don’t want out of there. That is easy! Not sure they can be available on such short notice but a girl can hope.
We need to make several phone calls tomorrow and cancel credit cards, insurance, etc. We may need to wait for the death certificate before we can do some of that. There is an order to these things and one is never quite sure what that order is until we call.
We are hoping we can leave for home by Wednesday. That may be optimistic but for today that is our goal. We had trouble finding an affordable hotel room for the night. We finally found one after three tries for around $125. The other two places we stopped at were over $200 for one night. We went on-line once we got into our hotel and found a different hotel for the next five nights for $125 a night. Max’s apartment only has one single bed and we need room for two. This will give us a break from our work each night which will probably be a good thing.
My ankles are really swollen tonight. They were bad last night too and even worse tonight. They will appreciate a couple days not in the car all day. It is hard to drink enough when you are on the road as bathroom breaks can be hard to manage. I’m sure after an active day tomorrow and not in the car much they will recover quickly.
Max did a great job of organizing his papers and left us good information to work from. It will be easier than I expected it to be but also know that we will run into some blocks along the way that will take patience and persistence to get through. Grateful Kathy is here with me so we can share this job.
I had trouble sleeping again last night. Trusting I can find some good sleep now that we are here and the first half of the drive is behind us. Grateful we have several days before we have to tackle the drive home. Since we will have a hotel room for the next five nights starting tomorrow, we can always go to the room during the day for a nap if needed.
It is still raining here in Amherst this evening. They have flood warnings all over as they have gotten more than their share of rain lately. Maybe we can talk the rain into coming home with us.
One of the things Kathy and I had talked about was the need to find some joy during this trip. Meeting my friend fit the bill for the day! We will take some time while we are here and find more ways to find joy. It has been a roller coaster of emotions so far and being intentional about finding joy on this trip is helpful.
Grateful to have gotten to meet my friend in person, grateful for how organized Max left things, and grateful for this time with Kathy.