# Chapter 330

The check list is getting smaller and shorter. We are getting the jobs done one at a time and occasionally two at a time when my dad can be persuaded to work alone. Persistent pressure on moving forward is the engine here. Even the jobs I especially don’t like get done eventually under this engine that keeps us humming along day after day. Today and tomorrow we will finish up what we can before I leave, and then the check list will grow long again in the three weeks I will be gone and we will start all over again then. This is the cycle of work here at my dad’s house while I am living in both GA and in PA in this moment in my life. There is always a great sense of accomplishment when this list gets smaller.

We need this sense of accomplishment, these days in particular while so much negative is going on around us. The biggest negative are all the deaths in the family and in our circle of relationships. We are at the stage of life when deaths are the new normal practically every day. When I am 60 years old and my dad is 80 years old, this is to be expected right? But that does not make it pleasant. This is why the check list takes on even more important, because it is one of the few things in our lives that we feel like we control.

Ok enough maudlin muddled thinking and time to get to work on that list and enjoy another day of getting it done.