Packing Misery: A Move Goes from Bad to Worse

All moves are hell, but moving my mother from Kentucky to Michigan was one of the worst. And for the sake of disclosure, I've moved a lot - in double digits territory.

My mother is getting up there in years, now 72, and in 2002 she had a mild stroke. It did some damage. She has a bit of memory loss, confuses a bit more easily, and has stiffness in her left leg, among other things. She needs to rest a lot, needs blood thinners, the whole nine yards. She manages pretty damn well, considering.

For years, however, I've wanted her to move closer to where my husband and I live, so we could help take care of her. Finally she agreed and the race was on.

It was a crazy, hectic few weeks. I drove the 500 miles to her home a few times in a couple of months. I brought her back to Michigan to apartment search, and tackle some of the mundane necessities that always accompany a move. Finding a new place to live wasn't that hard. The third place we looked was the charm for her, and she signed a lease and got the keys.

Now the hard part was upon us. Packing, heavy lifting and a long drive in a U-Haul, for starters. One of her friends helped by providing boxes and packing them. And my husband and I squeaked a bit of spare time to drive to her home and load the U-Haul and bring it all up here.

Hard work, but easy enough to manage. You'd think.

The day we picked up the U-Haul to take to her house was the day some record-breaking rain started in Kentucky and Tennessee. That Saturday just as the U-Haul was turning onto her road it began to rain. We tried to move the U-Haul onto the front lawn and angle the back end closer to the front door.

My husband thought the driveway would be better. More steps to carry the heavy stuff, but it wouldn't be in the lawn.

We should have listened.

After a couple of attempts to re-position the 27-footer, it felt it had moved enough and rooted itself in the mucky lawn. And the rains just came down harder. We finally decided it would be best to try the following morning and to hope for an easing of the downpour.

The next morning we did get a rain break, but the U-Haul remained fixed in the mud. We tried rocking it back and forth, blankets, evergreen branches. Anything a tired, desperate mind could think of, we tried.

We called the U-Haul road service and they said the insurance didn't cover a tow. But they gave us a number for someone who had other jobs, and in between he was hoping to avoid the worst of the rain. But he said he'd try. He drove by once during the worst of the downpours when the thunder sounded like bombs bursting in air and the lightning was very bright and very, very frightening. On top of that it looked like a lake had turned itself over the area and the fog was coming fast into the hills and valleys.

We told him to come back tomorrow. It was weather for taking cover and waiting out the storm, nothing more.

Before the tow truck guy could return that Monday, my mother decided to call her mechanic to see if he knew someone. (Never mind that I'd asked on Sunday if her mechanic could recommend a towing company.)

Sure enough, her mechanic knew of someone down the street. Within an hour he was there and had gotten the truck out of the mud. For $35. It felt like the deal of the century. And if it rained anymore after we'd left, the tire ruts would make a nice duck pond to boot.

We felt grateful, joyous to be on the road. I didn't even mind driving the U-Haul for the first leg. We were on our way! Crowded, sweaty, tired, but moving.

Then, about 40 miles into the trip I looked into the side mirror of the truck. I saw my mother's red car but I didn't see my husband following in my Malibu. I felt my heart sink. Was it a flat tire? I'd hoped it was something like that, but somehow I didn't think so. I pulled to the side and was frustrated to find he'd left me a phone message on my cell, but I had no signal along the road cleaved out of mountainsides.

I scooted up the road a bit and finally got a signal. "Where are you?" I asked. A few miles back, at the last light I'd passed, he told me. The Malibu had lost all power.

It sounded suspiciously like the alternator. Which was doubly frustrating since I'd had it replaced six months earlier.

My mother and I found him and he called for another tow. So we waited in the hot sun along a noisy little highway, cat carrier parked in the shade, hoping the truck would arrive soon.

We all felt like crying or shouting at someone, I'm sure. I know I did, staring up at the rocky walls lining the highway and fighting the urge to sob.

The tow truck arrived in about half an hour, giving us time to make room. He took the car 20 miles away and we debated: Do we leave it and make an 800-mile round trip in a few days to retrieve it? Or do we stay overnight and hope that it is the alternator or something simpler and easier?

We decided to stay, enjoy a dinner at a local restaurant, get a hot shower, a good night of sleep. The next morning it was fixed and we were again on our way.

The rest of the trip went pretty well. We arrived that evening and I have to admit, I was never so happy and grateful to be back home. Later that night, I confessed to my husband, when we got into Michigan, I was torn between whooping for joy or crying tears of relief. He admitted he pretty much felt the same.

There's no place like home.