Friday, September 09, 2005

A very long week

It's been a week since we last updated this blog and a real blur. To get the main points we'll probably have to use a quick synopsis:

Saturday, September 2: Our Final Moving Sale. Almost everything went (with just a few left over boxes dropped off at the New Paltz Youth Center for their Yard Sale). The best part is that we raised over $1,000 for charity. A great day and we were feeling a few thousand pounds lighter!

Sunday, September 3: We drove Shana up to the University of Toronto on Sunday with a stop at Niagra Falls on the way. The Falls were beautiful (although the view from the Canadian site may be more spectacular, we preferred the US side for the natural beauty of the State Park there).





After a stop at Canadian customs to get Shana's Visa, we drove the rest of the way to Toronto and got there just before dinner. Shana's dorm is really nice:




Toronto is also a beautiful city. Although we're sure that she'll do great at college, it was very sad to say goodbye.

Monday, September 4: After staying in a Hotel outside of Toronto, we spent the morning visiting some old and dear friends of Brian's. Brian has known Rajan & Ramin Burney for over 20 years from his days in the Adirondacks (and visits to Montréal). We had a great time visiting them and Ramin's family (Mung Thu, Maya & Yasmine) -- with a special treat to see Sacha, Danya and Dylan Sabih --who were also visiting for the weekend from Montréal. Lots of memories with these guys!!!

In the afternoon, we went to Buffalo and saw Misty's new home. If you don't know already, although we had found a home for Misty in Connecticut, at the last minute we were able to place her with our very good friends, Dan and Tammy Rutar, who live in Buffalo (much closer to Shana and will make it possible to visit her on occasion). Anyway, Misty is now living with 3 cats (!!!) and was getting a lot of love from her new owners. She seemed happy with the new "digs" (sorry--couldn't resist the pun).

After our 3rd and final "family" goodbye, we headed back to a VERY empty home and a welcome sleep.

Tuesday, September 5: After various morning meetings, we headed down to have lunch with Sherry and Samyar Bukovcan. Although we were running very late, we felt that we should stop in and say some prayers with Dr. Ruhe—who had been in the nursing home for a few weeks now and was quite ill. He was sleeping and looked very close to moving to the next world, so we felt it to be a great blessing to say some prayers for him as he slept and after 20 minutes or so headed down to see the Bukovcans.

After a nice lunch with our friends, Sherry got a phone call and found out that Dr. Ruhe had passed away about an hour after we left. Although we are very sad to lose this great friend, in light of the difficulties with his health these past few years (and especially the past month) we also felt a great sense of relief that he had finally been released from the struggles of this world.

After saying some prayers for him with Sherry, Samyar and Shohreh -- we traveled another hour downstate into New Jersey to say goodbye to Brian’s brother and sister and their families. Despite the emotional roller coaster of the rest of the day, we had a great time with them and finally wound up back home at 11pm.

*********************************************************

Since Tuesday, our days have been filled with lots of running around and packing and getting ready for the move this coming Monday. It feels like it's all getting done -- at the same time as it will never end.

Today, we will go to the funeral of Dr. Ruhe and will have the unplanned-for opportunity to say goodbye -- not only to Dr. Ruhe -- but to many of our friends will also be there to pay their respects.