Flight plans

I am in a perfect storm of details related to my aunt's estate and the selling of her apartment and staving off bank foreclosure on her reverse mortgage, and what to do with all the perfectly good furniture in there which no one has space for, not her daughter or her granddaughter, and definitely not me in my little three-bedroom apartment that has already absorbed my mother's things. I'd hate to see Aunt Winnie's stuff go into a dumpster. Maybe someone at the church around the corner can use it, and there's an idea, we should check into that, even though those who will need it most won't be able to afford to move it, so we'll need to figure that out, too. It's all logistics and timing now that the will has been probated. We need to get the apartment cleared out so the painters can come in so we can sell it in a timely fashion and pay off the bank and hope there is enough left for her daughter and grandchildren and great grands so we can carry out her wishes.

In the midst of all this I am making flight arrangements for my girl to fly home from Chicago and for the two of us to fly to Antigua. My husband and son left this morning and are already there. I stayed back to travel with my daughter who will have to leave her internship a week early in order to attend her grandfather's funeral. We won't talk about the cost of all this because I am doing my thing where I tell myself the universe is plastic and all of this will work out somehow and we will cover the thousands of dollars in airfare and thousands more in funeral expenses, and (don't laugh) I've pasted a little post it on my desk that says "Money comes to me frequently and easily," and let's all manifest that, shall we?

The most exciting thing in my world is that my girl will soon be home and we will travel to Antigua together and she is the most wonderful traveling companion (so is my son), so there is that to look forward to. Then in two weeks we will travel to Jamaica to see my mom, just the kids and me, and I hope she lasts a while longer because I couldn't stand to lose her right now. Every death brings back all the others, and my father in law's death brings back the loss of my own dad, and Aunt Winnie just a couple months gone, and all the old ones inching out the door, and me hoping and praying they do a little cha cha and take their time. And I'm really a little incoherent and scattered right now, trying to keep all the details straight and the to do lists attended to, so I might not be here as much as usual, or else I might.

But hey. This sweetheart is coming home. That's enough to lift any heart.