Quiet

The house is very empty without Burt’s presence.

After he passed, I changed its configuration, flipping bedroom for livingroom. There is a kind of hush over both rooms.

In many ways, it doesn’t feel like it was his house these last few years. Well, that’s not completely true; actually the big brown chair – his recliner- was so identified as his that I refused to sit in it for a while. It was his chair.

The hospital bed is gone, and the rearranged furniture has the effect of taking the room out of his ownership.

The bedroom had definitely been Burt’s room. I stopped in to visit with him as soon as I came in from my outings, before I put down whatever I brought home.

The Burt who had inhabited our home was ill, he was impaired the last many years.

If the house doesn’t feel like it was Burt’s house, it’s because I had made it over. Really, I had to, to reclaim the better memories.