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Cutting a line to the past

3 min read

This week, I’m preparing to do one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I’m going to have to shut off my parents’ home phone. They had the same phone number since the late ’70s when, as a new couple full of hope and ideals for their future, they moved from Greene to Washington County.

This phone number followed them around to half a dozen homes and through the birth of four children and nearly 40 years of marriage. The only change their phone number ever saw was when the 412 area code switched to 724.

That phone line heard any number of teenage conversations and was the line my dad used for his business. It went from having a busy signal when someone else called, to having call waiting, and eventually having caller ID. When my dad passed away a year and a half ago and my husband and I bought the property from my siblings, we kept the phone on because I could not bear the thought of dialing the number and not getting my parents’ house. I justified leaving it on, saying that we needed a phone over there while we were working on finishing the interior of the house.

We kicked around the idea of trying to open a bed-and-breakfast over there, and I enjoyed the idea of that phone number staying with the house. But as time has passed and we have taken a more rational approach to the situation, we have decided that now is not the best time for us to take on another business venture. So, in a few short weeks, friends of ours will be moving into the house and renting it from us, and they are bringing their own phone number.

This means that the time has finally come. It does not come without a large measure of sadness. As I said, it is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

Funny how that works, isn’t it? Long after the reality has set in that my mom is gone – it has been 5 ½ years – the thought of dialing that phone number and hearing that it has been disconnected is an incredibly painful thought. The thought of dialing it and having a stranger answer it might be even worse.

This whole grief thing never really goes away, I guess. It lessens some, at least in frequency if not in depth. But every so often it still catches you off guard and fully unprepared for the burning pain that sears across your chest. The tears spill as heavily, and the breath comes as ragged as if it was the first miserable day all over again.

Say a prayer for me this week. Say a prayer for all of those who are still grieving the loss of someone so dear that there are days they cannot even form the words to express themselves.

I can promise you we need it.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.

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