Three Days and Counting

As I sit here and write this blog, I know I should be running around and packing while the kids are sleeping but I think I will leave it till the morning. I haven’t really been able to find a second to sit and type but thought I ought to update everybody.

I sold the house, sold the van and the golf and we’re off to Ottawa this Saturday.

Sounds like a nightmare to be dealing with all these details while planning a move across the country but things have sort of fallen into place over the last three weeks.
It all started when a nice young man named Chris Allen phoned my ad in the auto trader to enquire about our golf. He ended up buying our car and has since given it a great new home to go another 200,000kms hopefully. Chris Allen also just happens to work at the Park Royal Keg where Mark and I both started our careers with The Keg. It almost seems like it was meant to be. I had a number of other calls about the car but felt like my little green golf with all its sentimentality was meant to go to a fellow Kegger. I then broke the rule of selling a used car, never call the buyer after and ask how everything is but I just needed to know. So, I phoned Chris and heard back from him after his first road trip with his new car up to the Island to Tofino. Tofino, ironically is a place that Mark and I always wanted to go to but never did once we had the kids and it is the name of our new street in Kanata.

There have been lots of other welcoming coincidences along the way but I am way too tired to write about them tonight. In less than 72 hours our house will be bustling with movers and some great Starbucks friends who have kindly offered to help me clean. The kids will be swimming at the hotel having fun with Grandpa, oblivious to the amount of effort it requires to move (the kids that is, NOT Grandpa!) and we will be in our new home next week.

We are spending Wednesday and Thursday here in Langley with the hopes of saying goodbye to everyone and all the special places we have discovered over the last few years and would love to see everyone. My permanent webmail will remain the same baristamamma@gmail.com so please contact me if you’d like to connect with us before we fly out on Saturday morning. Of course, you can always reach me on my cell. Email me if you don’t have it. The primary email address most of you have lesnmark@shaw.ca will be disconnected on Wednesday so update me in your address book. And look for me on FACEBOOK if you'd like. Warning though, it's a bit of a time sucker and lots of fun.

It’s not goodbye yet...
Leslie

Moving forwards...

The time has come for me to make my way back to Ottawa. At the end of the month, Audrey, Noah and I will be moving back. I found a house for us during our trip home last month and we will be on our way on June the 2nd.

It comes at a time when the days feel especially long without Mark. I miss him terribly as do the kids, and our life out here moves along with a large gap in it. Now that some time has passed, I feel ready to embark on what Mark and I decided was the best thing for our family. It will be hard to leave BC, but in our hearts we knew this was what was going to happen. I am grateful Mark had the courage to plan for our future and help me make this incredibly hard decision. I don't think I could have decided something so important without his input. I admire his courage for facing reality and helping me choose where I was going to raise our family even after he was gone.

It might come as a surprise to some that we talked about stuff like this, but I remember the day Mark told me I should move back to Ottawa. As I'm sure you could guess, it was somewhere between VGH and the Portmann bridge. The place where we had so many of these conversations was in our little Golf that we bought together 11 short years ago. By the time we got to that bridge one of us was usually crying and Mark always said..."Why do we have such heavy conversations 15 minutes from home?!" And my response was usually, "You have cancer, why do you think???!!! Even when he was so close to dying, he still wanted to carry on as usual and not get too bogged down with things. He accepted it, helped me to accept it, planned and then said, "Let's get on with things here, we haven't seen the kids all day."

As for our green golf, I have decided to sell it (on Mark's advice of course). It will be hard to see it go but it is an awesome car that has never left me stranded anywhere in the 11 years that I have owned it. And just to add to the list of TO DO's, I have decided to sell our minivan as well. The thought of driving across the country, alone, with two small children just seems crazy.

With so much to do and such a limited amount of oomph, I have neglected my blog, phone calls, thank-you's and much more. I hope to blog more and keep in touch as time goes on. The friends that Mark and I have made out here on the West Coast will be friends for life. I always look forward to your comments and emails so keep in touch and I will promise to do the same.

Leslie