Seven Years

It’s an anniversary for us today!  On June 30, 2019 we left South Bend for Princeton, New Jersey.  We left the AirBnB where we had been living for a month.  Our house in Granger sold so quickly that we had to move out before we planned to do so.  We found a place right next to the Notre Dame campus that we think was a prime rental for football weekends.  There must have been ten football posters on the walls. We spent that month saying good-bye to friends and good-bye to our community for 28 years.

Then on July 1, we moved into our next transitional housing at Homewood Suites just a short ride from the Barclay Square Apartments in Princeton, New Jersey where our lease began on July 17.   We spent two weeks signing up for utilities, WiFi,  library cards, driver’s licenses, and buying the necessities that we had not moved—mattresses and many bookshelves.  

Our earthly goods all arrived on time and in good condition on an incredibly hot day.  The poor movers worked hard and the A/C could not keep up with the demand for several days.  Our family all showed up for a house warming party that weekend  with time in the apartment pool and was it pizza? And we do remember the ice cream cake that wouldn’t fit in the freezer so we had to cut it in half.

It took some time to find a church, and to find medical personnel that we liked and trusted.  And there were some hard times ahead with Jim’s prostate cancer diagnosis and then the Covid pandemic that affected all our lives—even if Jim and I never succumbed to the disease itself.  

But seven years later, we can still say we really like our lovely apartment and are finding it difficult to think of uprooting ourselves for continued care senior housing.  We are so happy to be nearer our children and some of our grandchildren.  One family is just ten minutes away; another about an hour, and the third sadly some further about 2 12 hours.  But all of that is so much better than 700 miles.

We miss South Bend friends and our church—and the opportunities on Notre Dame’s campus.  But we have not regretted our move and can celebrate seven years in our new home!