By Eleanor Kazdan, May 5, 2019 — I have always considered myself a city person. I just happened to live in the suburbs for many years out of convenience, to be close to jobs. The truth is, I got used to the open spaces, big houses, and seeming safety. I never liked having to drive everywhere and I never liked the lack of diversity. Twenty-some years passed by.
My kids grew up and finally moved out. Life was even quieter. One day in the early morning I happened to look out the window and saw kids waiting for the school bus. It was one of those aha moments! An overwhelming thought came into my head, “I have to leave the suburbs. I have to live in the city.” Over the years my husband and I had grown to love downtown Philadelphia and couldn’t understand why so many people were down on their own city.
I breached the subject with my husband. It took some convincing, but he finally agreed to consider moving.
We hired a realtor who was terrible, a friend-of-a-friend. We found our own listings online and she took us to see them. Nothing seemed right. We decided to put the whole thing on hold.
One day, she called us and said we should go to see a house she’d just viewed at an open house. I almost declined because it was on a main street and we wanted to be on a quiet side street.
Well, we set foot in this house and before we had even seen the top floor, we looked at each other. It was love at first sight.
The day we were to sign a contract, a call came in the middle of the night. My father had died. Bleary-eyed and grief-stricken, we went ahead with the signing while planning a funeral.
An ending and a new beginning.