Direction Book

A week after my father passed away, almost five years ago, it became very clear that, amongst other things, mom’s ability to navigate around our mainland neighborhood had evaporated. We were, mostly chalking it up to stress, but it in fact her navigator was gone. Little did we know how much she depended on him.

My daughter made mom a book full of local directions in a pretty blank book. Its attractiveness, we hoped would catch mom’s eye when she needed to find it. We suggested she keep it in the car, a logical place, but we weren’t dealing with logic, and I didn’t understand that at the time. Mom would call from either home asking for directions, and I’d refer her to the book. Sometimes she knew what I was talking about, and sometimes not. The book finally went by the wayside. By 2015 it didn’t matter as she wasn’t driving off the Island any longer.

I found the book on this trip. It’s still just as pretty as ever, but now has the unmistakable smokey, musty smell that the house smelled like when open fires were being burned in the fireplace. I’ll check in with my kid, but I don’t think we need to keep this piece for historical posterity.

Directions