So things are moving right along. I’m still living in the apartment on the west side of Toronto. I’m getting used to my new hood and making a couple of friends. Everyone here is in a power chair, so we at least have that in common. It seems the main reasons why folks end up here are either Multiple Sclerosis, Cerebral Palsy, or some sort of spinal accident. I learned from one guy that he was shot while driving his car. The bullet shattered his shoulder, then hit his spine and now he can’t walk. Crazy stories! Sad…
I’m also going back-and-forth Bridgepoint Hospital, where I was for about four months this year, as my follow-up occupational and physio therapy has begun.
One last major update is that the renovations on our home have finally kicked into high gear. Our basement is now officially demolished and we’re soon about to dig down the floor and do the underpinning so as to make our basement more liveable for me.
So all of a sudden I am visiting the three places that I have lived in this year, sometimes all in one day. And the emotions tied to that are plenty.
I am reminded of how beautiful the hospital is and how thankful I am to have met some wonderful people there as I reconnect with them.
I am also grateful that when I get back to my apartment I feel comfortable here.
But mostly I am quite excited, nervous, and perhaps a little afraid, that my house is now completely torn up and there’s no changing our minds on home renos from this point forward.
I have been craving barbecued pork chops for some reason. And since there is no barbeque here, I mentioned to Erinn that I’d like to come home one day and have a barbecue. So this past week we did just that. And as just the two of us sat on the back deck Eating pork chops and corn on the cob, a fairly normal summer thing, I felt the magnitude of it. Besides Being thrilled to be eating barbecued pork chops for the first time this summer, I strongly realized that this is where my heart is.
This apparently every day thing which was far from every day for us given the year we are having, felt like home to me.
So despite the upheaval of everything, regardless of our basement being completely ripped apart at the moment, even though I am now in a power chair and life is very different for all of us because of that, although I’ve lived somewhere else for 170 days and counting, I was home.
Once again I was reminded of how powerful this proverb is;
There is no place like home!
And it gives me hope.
New Hope.
Real hope.
For that I am thankful.