Camelot

2 p.m. Eastern Time, November 8th marks the end of an era.  At that appointed hour, a very special little property on the Midcoast of Maine (and the vessel which contains a fair amount of my adulthood) transfers to the stewardship and care of its new family.  It marks the end of a remarkable, twenty year odyssey in the lives of the Reece-Sanchez family and a transition to "that which comes next."  

Over the years, Philip and I have bought and sold over a dozen properties together.  Why is this one so different?

MooseWalk Cottage, as we have come to call it, embodies so much more than just lumber, shingles, floors, and windows.  It carries the essence of those of us who have loved it and shared it with friends and neighbors.  Many of those friends and neighbors visit us now only in memory.  And what memories they are!  Starting with the brisk spring day (Mother's Day) that we discovered the place, there were harbingers of wonderful times to come:  our across-the-road neighbor, Joe Rotondi, was mowing his lawn when we drove up for our first look.  I still remember the straw hat he wore when he stopped his mower and crossed the road to say hello.  It seems like yesterday.  And it was just the beginning...

MooseWalk has been the place where bonds were formed that would not form elsewhere.  It is a disarming place.  Enter there and leave all cares, worries, obstacles, prejudices and inhibitions behind.  It is the place where my Father and I learned to respect one another; then year-after-year, built upon that foundation of respect until a structure of true, loving understanding was formed.  MooseWalk was the catalyst that brought us to our "perfect" place together.   

My niece, Jennifer, and our nephew, Joaquin, have enjoyed summer after summer bathed in the limitless love unique to this little sanctuary.  I think that each of them has at least a sense of the magical nature of MooseWalk.  In their hearts and minds, I imagine it must be a sort of Camelot.  And it is the heart and mind where a true Camelot endures. 

When Dad became ill and his end seemed so inescapable, I began to look for a way to memorialize what he and I had forged at MooseWalk.  The day would soon come that we would no longer be able to share it together.  I had two small silver disks engraved with the latitude and longitude of the cottage on one side, the compass rose on the other.  The disks dangled on a chain around my neck until the day that Dad passed.  One of the disks, I placed near his heart, in the breast pocket of the jacket he wore to his rest. The other, I permanently and discreetly affixed to an inside corner of the foundation of MooseWalk Cottage.  Requiem sempiternam.

No one, no material thing will last forever.  The only thing of permanence and real meaning in perpetuity is love.

For me and mine, MooseWalk Cottage will be a lasting symbol of our shared love, our Camelot.  How fortunate we were to have been its stewards for so long.  Now, we relinquish it with warm hearts, best wishes and wonderful memories. 

Camelot awaits us all if we know where to look.

...and I am so grateful.