Everyone’s circumstances are unique, and people move for different reasons.

I did not move because I wanted to.

I did not move because I had to.

I moved because it was the right thing to do.

The time had come for us to live closer to our children.

None of our children live in the greater Cleveland area, and I did not want to place them (or us) in a position of having to constantly come back and forth for any health-related issues we might have in the future.

My husband’s grandparents are buried in Cleveland, and this choice was not easy. It required maturity and resolve. I had less of the former and more of the latter.

We made our own decisions, and we wrote our own exit. Both aspects were painful.

We moved from a three-floor house (with a well-crammed garage) filled with our memories and stuff, including items we inherited when we emptied both our mothers’ homes. We had to fit all that into a small (ok, maybe not so small), one-floor condo we were renovating from afar.

Because we crossed state lines, we were also tasked with finding new doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs. As soon as we arrived in Baltimore, one of our mechutanim was niftar, our newest grandchild was born two months prematurely, my orthopedic issues necessitated complete shoulder replacement, and my driver’s license and passport expired. And that’s not to mention the flooded laundry room.

It was a grand shalom aleichem.

Yet, onward we forged.

Because I had a few months to empty the house I’d lived in for over 48 years, I used the opportunity not only to purge (is that another word for downsize?), but also to choose carefully what to take along.

Keep, pack, toss, throw, wrap, give away, repeat. Each and every item I touched became a brutal decision. Some of those choices were very difficult. I couldn’t have done it without the aid and support of our children, our friends, and my wonderful sister who helped in so many ways.

I packed the memories and left the things.

I was not going to need the service for 12 of either my everyday milchig or everyday fleishig dinnerware. I gave both sets away. After the move I bought a really pretty service for four. I feel like a newlywed.

I kept my beautiful Shabbos dishes even though I don’t use all of them because I just couldn’t part with them, and, after all, I have to leave something for my kids to do when the time comes…

I also kept both sets of silverware because I really like them.

I gave away some old pots and pans, brooms, vacuum cleaners, small appliances, and kitchen utensils and bought new ones that don’t work as well as the ones I left behind.

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 624)