From Hamlet to Hawthorne--A Truly Moving Experience

 

Our apartment unit is in Virginia Mennonite Retirement
Community's Park Village, sandwiched between the garages
that belong to our next door neighbors.

After enjoying 33 years in a three-bedroom home on Hamlet Drive we've just spent our first night at our new address at 1540 Hawthorne Circle, just a half mile away.

As new members of a retirement village we are adjusting to a community that is definitely more quiet and slow paced, with no farm trucks or noisy traffic driving by, and where everyone seems to turn in for the night by the time it gets dark. While we don't yet consider ourselves fully retired, we're sure our good neighbors will teach us a lot about how to live well in this closing chapter of our lives.

And what a welcoming community this is! A flower arrangement with kind notes from several VMRC administers greeted us upon arrival, and all of their staff have been far beyond helpful in attending to our every need. And VMRC refurbished our unit with new carpet, trim, doors, appliances and other amenities far beyond our expectations or wishes. We're just not used to living at this kind of upscale level.

On moving day, our house church friends Lois and Elly brought pizza, drinks, snacks  and a vegetable tray, and our realtors, Kara and LaDawn, surprised us with a bouquet of flowers and enough sandwiches and other delicacies for many a future meal. Later yesterday some old friends who are now among our new neighbors, Harley and Irene, brought us more flowers and still more food!

We've also been blessed with great support from our daughter in Rochester who came to help us get ready for our move, and from our Pittsburgh-based son who was a great co-organizer on our last two moving days. Our other wonderful son and his interior decorator wife have also been incredibly helpful in getting our Hamlet house ready to sell and helping us get organized and situated here at Hawthorne.

Many thanks, too, to church friends Lewis and Mary Ellen and to our friend Guy and many other  neighbors and members of our church family who have helped us stay mostly sane and well supported through this process. 

This is will make the seventh home Alma Jean and I have lived in since our marriage  57 years ago this August 8. Each house holds special memories, and we're sure this one will as well. 

May our next move be our last and best, and our next home our forever shabbat (rest).