Lasts. Last Thursday, Friday, Saturday on Shadow Mountain. Next to last visit from Melissa. Last meals. Joseph as the last guest. Ruth and Gabe coming up Sunday for their last visit here. Selling the last car I’ll ever own.

A change in address does not reveal the life change that made it happen. Shadow Mountain to Elk Run. Descending 1,600 feet. Permanently. But why?

In Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, at the base of his pyramid, are the absolute necessities: oxygen, food, water. The second set of needs that come when those are met is safety: “The need for physical, emotional, and financial security, protection from harm, stability, and health.” Gemini

After my hospitalization I got shaken to my core. Weak and depending on others for essential activities, I lay in my bed in rehab. Nothing intruded except lunch, my next P.T. or O.T. session. No uncut grass. No need to make a meal. No worry about a wildfire forcing Shadow and me to flee. I liked that feeling, a decompression after five plus years managing on my own.

Maybe I don’t have to stay on Shadow Mountain? Before the pneumonia I wanted to leave Shadow Mountain in a hearse. Die in our bed. Remain in place until the end.

I never questioned this resolve. An expression of loyalty: to Kate, to Ruth and Gabe, to memory. A way of asserting my agency, my independence. Sovereignty over my life. A mountain man.

But then. Huh. I could live without that set of concerns? How would that work? In itself this insight about the option to live in a different way would not have jostled me loose. It was not the only motivator.

When I came home from rehab, I tripped and fell at the front door. Not a great start. As I lived into life at home after a full month in hospital beds, my level of weakness, of dependence on others added itself to my thinking.

I realized that once Joseph and Mary left, I would be alone. Something I had reveled in felt like a burden. I could no longer count on myself if I fell. Grew suddenly ill. What had been a mark of my aging, alone but not lonely, now had the feel of rationalization.

What did that mean? Projecting into life with only me in the house, I identified the source of dis-ease. Safety. I no longer trusted my physical safety, even with my Life Alert medallion.

That critical need could no longer be met alone. I did not feel safe, physically safe, living alone. No matter the memories. My living situation had to change.

On Wednesday, September 16th, it will.