Flying the "friendly skies."

And I hope the skies will indeed be friendly for my Aunt Dolly, because my cousin S has convinced her to fly back to New York, instead of driving back from Florida. This has been a year of "firsts" for my 94-yr-old aunt, to say the least.

She drove down to Florida the week before last, in my cousin S's Hummer. Now I would have liked to have seen that-- my aunt climbing up into a Hummer. I'm still wondering how she managed to do that. The trip took three days of driving, so my aunt got to see a lot of the east coast along the way from New York to Florida.

But now she's got to get back to NY and supervise the packing of her house there, in preparation for the big move to Florida. S didn't want to take another three days driving her back to NY, only to turn himself around and drive back to Florida, taking yet another two days. I can see his point there... that's a lot of days off from his job.

Somehow, he convinced my aunt to get on a plane, and he'll fly up to NY with her, then take another plane back to Florida. More money, I'm sure, but less time. I wonder if he has explained to my aunt that she will have to take her shoes off at the airport before they will let her through the security gates. For his own peace of mind, I hope he has told her that, and prepared her for all of the other security measures, because I know that my aunt is not going to like that kind of a surprise once she gets to the airport. (Talk about wanting to be a fly on the wall.....)

I'm still deciding whether or not to have some of the furniture in my grandmother's house shipped down here. It's going to cost more than the furniture is worth, plus it will add another level of stress for my aunt, who will have to be there to watch the furniture picked up by the moving van that I hire. The present plan is for her to pick out what she wants moved to Florida, and everything she picks will be packed and shipped for her--- but she won't have to see anything actually leaving that house. As if by magic, it will just arrive shortly after she gets to her new home in Florida. Everything else that is left in my grandmother's house will be sold, but my aunt will no longer be there to see things being taken out of the house.

My husband has told me to do whatever I want to do about the furniture... he said not to think about the cost if I really want the furniture for this house or the lake house. The practical side of me says not to do it.... I can probably find more or less the same bamboo porch furniture in an antique shop here, for less than half of the money it would cost to have that set moved from NY.

Then the sentimental side of me says to have the furniture moved here... for the simple reason that I spent so much time at my grandmother's house that it was a second home for me for all of my growing-up years. How nice it would be to have such a significant reminder of all of those years in my grandparent's house. My grandmother used to sit on the porch sofa and crochet... my grandfather would sit in one of the chairs and smoke a cigar.... and I'd be in the other chair with a book or a coloring book and crayons. In those days, the neighborhood was quiet... we'd all sit there and we could hear the birds. Now the streets there are so noisy that most of the windows in my grandmother's house are never even opened.

I can see the past in my mind's eye. I've lived without that furniture for all of these years, and I never expected to have the opportunity to have anything from that house. But now I have my choice, and the practical side of me is saying that all I really need is my mind's eye, so nothing else should matter.

This will be very hard to arrange, to make it easy on my aunt, and I have to give my cousin S a lot of credit for what he's doing here. Not easy moving out of state, but when the "movee" is a 94-yr-old woman whose only wish was to live in Papa's home until her last breath, that makes it harder still. Needless to say, my aunt has been on edge during all of this, and no matter how beautiful she says Florida is, I know she'd much rather live in Queens.