Grief, In No Particular Order

When I first told my parents that Hubby was interviewing for his new job, my mom slipped into shock/denial right then and there...

"Mom, if all goes well with Hubby's interview tomorrow, we may be moving to London..."

"Oh. Well, before you go, could you return that skirt I gave you? I saw it in your closet--"

"Sure, but did you hear what I said?"

"I never see you wear it and I want it back."

"Okay, you can have it, but Mom--"

"I paid a lot of money for that skirt and--"

"MOM, SHUT ABOUT THE STUPID SKIRT. WE ARE MOVING TO LONDON..."

Then, there was the short-lived "bargaining phase" of suggesting that my son and I continue living here while Hubby lived over there until he decides if this is "really the job for him"... (umm, NO and yes, it is)

A few days later, they started making pithy remarks like, "This is not a time to be happy about anything." That same week, I decided to pack up the house early and move in with them once Hubby left to start working.

Call me crazy, but I just wasn't up for keeping the house immaculate and show-worthy, while still packing and taking care of my son all... by... myself.

Excited that we would be staying with them for a whole month before leaving for good, they perked up a bit. That is, until three days ago when my dad, who is usually the nicest guy in the world, went off on a passive aggressive tirade that quickly switched to a full on aggressive tirade about how we should have taken his advice on storing our furniture...

Even though it was a mere three days before we were set to move everything out of the house and there's nothing I could do about it, but whatever...

We both knew it wasn't really about the furniture, but it still ended badly.

My next door neighbor warned me this would happen, so I knew it was just a matter of time before they would get to the "anger stage" of their grief. I just hoped it would be after we left, and not right before I was to move out of my house and into theirs. I also especially hoped that they would take it out on someone else and not me during the most frazzled stages of this move.

He blew up. I blew up, then cried, called my sister, told her all about it, and cried again. This clearly wasn't the way I wanted to part ways with my family.

In general, my parents have been great through this entire process of packing and moving. They've been very supportive and super helpful-- coming over to help pack, bringing us meals, and such. They even positively insisted that we store the bulk of our things at their house to save money, so this wasn't the way they wanted to part ways either.

My mom called an hour later to smooth things over. She listened to my side of the story and offered to come over and help out anyway I needed.

Both of my parents showed up later that evening baring the two biggest suitcases I've ever seen in my life. They had stopped to buy them for us on their way over because apparently that is how my dad says "sorry".