"Should I Go or Should I Stay?" by Emily Rosen
– I decided to play “Russian Roulette.”
Actuarial tables tease me with statistics and my family lives far away.
Emily Rosen lives in Boca Raton, Florida, where for over 20 years and until her recent 95th birthday, she instructed classes in memoir writing, publishing two anthologies of stories from her classes, and the book, Who Am I? For two decades and until the local weekly newspaper folded in 2021, she wrote the column “Everything's Coming Up Rosen.” Her travel and feature articles have appeared nationwide while her poetry languishes in the pages of a fat notebook. She has worked as a copy writer, travel writer, columnist, elementary and community college teacher, mental health counselor, and owner of the now defunct “singing telegram” company, Witty Ditty. Her long-lived history puts her at an old Philco Radio listening to FDR’s “Fireside Chats.” (www.emilyrosen424.com)
Emily Rosen
Author’s Talk
My 65-year-old elder son had succumbed to cancer about 8 months prior. He had been my go-to-fixer-person and cooked dinner for me every Monday night. When I say “everything,” it includes repairing my car to changing a light bulb. He lived 15 minutes from my house, a confirmed bachelor. I miss him terribly. Who else would vent with me over the conditions of the world? We had a really good relationship.
I had established a happy live-alone independent life in Florida with many friends, and activities. But Charlotte was home to my remaining son, and his wife and two post college grandkids. I had no family left in Florida, and I understood the actuarial tables. So. in consultation with my son, I decided, to move there and have a much closer connection to them.
I hired a “moving consultant,” secured estimates on moving costs, became a member of the Charlotte Writer’s Club, spent a weekend in Charlotte scouting domiciles with my son, found one that would work for me and arrived back in Florida to the ominous news that Russia had invaded Ukraine.
Ooops! I envisioned all the national and international fallout that would ensue – particularly, the effects on my life savings and upcoming major moving costs involving increased expenses, as well as the big pot of great unknowns.
And I realized that I was not – not yet -- ready to undo my life any more than it had already been undone FOR me. And thus my plans fell apart.
Now, when I am asked when I’m moving, I simply say: I’m here – til I’m there. — Emily Rosen
