Sorting Through Life's Trash

Since I last posted here in February 2010 a lot of life moments have come and gone. At the time of my last post I was leaving for Italy to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Rome, Italy with my husband. Little did I know that that visit with my Aunt would be the last time she would be in her "home" of 30+ years.

The following July she entered the hospital for an emergency surgical procedure and wound up staying in the hospital for a couple of months. She was then released in a non-ambulatory condition to an assisted living facility in the outskirts of Rome proper.

Today, she still resides in Villa Relais-Casa di Riposa that is located among the olive trees and fields some 20 miles from Rome center. She is ambulatory but, she is not able to live on her own.  And, she kind of refuses to talk...that is another story entirely. She turned 89 on May 6th.

I have been to visit her 4 times since February 2010, my last visit was this past February. And, in April/May of 2011 I closed her home out for good. I spent three long and emotional weeks in her condo/apartment she had lived in for 30 years sorting through her life's belongings  and stumbling upon bits and pieces of me as a child.

That brings me to today. My Uncle is currently working on moving her to the United States actually, to here, in my hometown in Virginia. While I don't know what this change will bring, it will be life altering for both her and myself. The positive thing, she is traveling light-the clothes on her back and what I had packed into bins from the closing of her condo in Rome.

As for everything else...I am doing well.

It's Not Paris....

I know, it's not Paris nor an African safari but...  I am going on an Italian adventure.

On my itinerary: Naples, Sorrento, Paestum, Amalfi, Positano, Ercolano, Capri, Viterbo, Siena, Cerveteri, Rome and whatever else strikes my fancy in the next few weeks.

I depart Monday.