Keys

Brian Wilson

Sometimes you have to stop looking for something in order to find it.

The story starts a few months ago when the decision was made for my mother-in-law to move from her home in Racine to Medford in order to be closer to us. In the process she wanted to downsize from the home she has lived in for more than 50 years to renting to avoid having all the maintenance and upkeep headaches that come with being a homeowner.

After looking at a number of options we found a place that should fit her needs and that is only a few blocks away from our home in the city of Medford. This will be relief for us and means that we can be there in a few minutes instead of the four plus hours if something happens and she needs us.

If all goes according to schedule by the time next week’s paper hits subscribers’ mailboxes she will be unpacking and settling into her new home in Medford.

I am looking forward to the move. I know it has been stressful on my wife, Kim, especially in recent years as our lives have gotten busier and we have not had the opportunity to visit as much. People who have extended relations living close-by tend to take it for granted that they can stop by for a half hour visit or to help with a task and be done. It is another thing when distance makes it a weekend-long commitment to do even minor tasks.

The other plus of Kim’s mom moving to Medford is that she will be here to see and share in many of Alex’s senior year moments, such as plays, concerts and sporting events. This is something she never really got a chance to do when my daughter was in high school, not being someone who liked to drive that much on her own.

We also look forward to getting Kim’s mom involved in the community and are busy compiling a list of contact people for a variety of places where she can volunteer or groups she can get involved with, starting with hanging out down at the Medford Curling Club to experience the Medford Area Chamber of Commerce Adult Trick or Treating in a couple months. On second thought that may be a bit much to take as someone’s first experience of life in Medford.

As you can imagine, there has been a lot of packing and sorting going on with my children traveling down to Racine to help go through things and decide what should stay and what should go.

The first of these trips was on September 8. My daughter had come home from work and worked to clean out our larger vehicle with the plan that she and her brother would head out right after Alex got off the golf course in the Curling Club annual golf outing.

Beth stopped by Tee Hi to get something out of my car that was parked there and in the 15 feet and approximately 7 seconds of going from one vehicle to another managed to lose the one set of keys we had to the vehicle she planned to drive to Racine that night. What followed was about two hours of ransacking and searching every inch and cubby of both vehicles to no avail. The keys were just gone.

Before it got too late to drive they ended up taking a different vehicle and we called Mach Lock who was able to come out on that Sunday and make us a set of new keys for the vehicle. It was truly amazing watching him quickly get the keys made. I have a great deal of respect for any craftsman.

That was several weeks ago, and other than being an item to occasionally poke fun at my daughter, was largely in the past.

On Saturday, we had to run some errands to pick up supplies for an upcoming event and at one point I reached into the center console in order to retrieve some pain relievers that I thought were there and my hand came down on the missing keys. It would have been far better and far less expensive had we been able to find them the 27 other times we searched that console.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.