The haunting and lovely strains of the Navy hymn, Eternal Father, Strong to Save, brought me to tears as I listened to the Armed Forces chorus and orchestra perform the beautiful song at Jimmy Carter‘s funeral. It evoked so many feelings, both about my own father and about our country—and the end of an era.

      Truthfully, the era ended a while ago, but the finality hit me during the service.     

      I was 24 when President Carter was elected, and I had moved back to Alexandria, Va., after two years of teaching in the Virginia mountains. His inauguration is the only one I ever attended.

      It was a glorious cool winter day and he and Rosalynn got out of the limousine and walked most of the route down Pennsylvania Avenue. Everyone cheered.  …

      I won’t lie: moving at our age, 72, was difficult. (Or maybe I’ve just repressed how stressful it has always been.)

      After 25 years in our traditional two-story home, we recently moved to a (mostly) one-level ranch home. It’s a brand-new house, with a kitchen I love, so I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’m glad we didn’t wait until we were even older. This process does not get easier as one ages.

      The six-month downsizing and moving process seemed endless as the new house was being built and as I sorted through furniture and belongings that wouldn’t be coming with us. Having one’s house up for sale is stressful at best, traumatic at worst. Keeping the staged house perfectly clean while caring for our aging dog was challenging.

      Finally, we moved on the day that hurricane Helene came through North Carolina—you can imagine how much fun that was.

I often have to update information at a medical appointment. The questionnaire sometimes asks about my hobbies. I usually answer: reading, running and walking, and yoga. But for the last seven years, caregiving for various family members, including the canine variety, has taken much of my time.

      I think that’s my hobby—or my vocation—in retirement. 

Like many partners, I’ve cared for my spouse—in my case, through two bouts of leukemia, a stroke and several surgeries. I’ve learned how to administer medication via a port, flush a line, clean a wound with saline, wrap it with Coban tape and check a medicine pack when it runs low on batteries.

      In other words, I know about things that I never wanted to know or never even knew existed. . . .

I winced as the friendly, strong junk guys maneuvered my husband’s old desk down the brick front steps and tossed it into the truck bed, where it splintered. Even though that desk was never my favorite, I felt a quick pang of regret as it landed with a crunch.

The competent guy in charge had told us that they would recycle what they could. I realized then that our definitions of recycling might vary, but overall I was glad to get these eight or nine pieces of well-used furniture out of our house.

There went the particle board bookcases I bought more than 45 years ago for my first apartment—cheap, because that was all I could afford on my teacher’s salary. Onto the pile went my mother‘s antique vanity dressing table, which had one broken leg for years that we never got around to fixing.

You get the idea. None of the items in the junk pile was worth saving and no one wanted any of them. Even so, I could almost hear a few pieces groan and sigh as they were abandoned.

We are downsizing from a two-story house to a one-level ranch. . . .