Tom & I drove down to Bisbee early yesterday morning to sign papers and to close the bittersweet chapter of Bisbee in my life. It was windy on the go and suddenly I remembered moving down there with your Dad 30 years ago this very same week ! Joseph was the baby that we carried and I remembered calling Larry Earley from a phone booth...only to find that he was at the hospital with Suzie have the new baby Joseph's future friend Andrew Earley !

We drove through Old Bisbee and up the winding Tombstone Canyon a few times. Drove by Tom's old house and Molly's now also for sale. We ran into Jessie ( Carena's daughter ) now 38 with 4 kids ! She had twins is still married to Jeremy Lumpkin. She said Tyler is back working with Daniel Munsey who I guess took over from his Dad who retired, and is making cabinets and just had a baby with his wife.

We ran into a few people we knew, my old gallery space on Main Street is empty and for rent again. We didn't walk down Main Street, I was kind of honoring a request to myself to keep it simple....
It kind of looks  broken down and depressed there- but I think its just because we are done with our time there. Some of my best and worst times of my life happened in Bisbee.... 

I was reminiscing about the excitement Gary & I felt as we first drove down Tombstone Canyon with our 4 en tow with excitement of his new job at the prison, and me finally getting to play the small town Mom card, as Joseph and Rebecca were both under 3 and the "bigs" 6 and 10. Whew ! Passing Trinity UMC thinking about the sweet little Christian School, my involvement there starting God's Storehouse to help out our neighbors in need, volunteering at Greenway School in the beginning, and Bisbee High School at the end.

Our 4 places  of residences the La Clair ranch outside of town, next to the bar on Bisbee Road, Campbell Street and finally Black Knob View. I left a letter for the new owner with a little history of the house including our fun times of celebrations and parties in the great room and on the patio. I told them that memories of love echo there and filled those walls. I asked God to bless them as they took over the care taking of our Bisbee family home.

The Black Knob house somehow is a tangible reminder of the success of my gallery, that started as the "little engine that could" on Subway Street and  now almost at its 25 year mark this March. I have mixed emotions to a place that offered us the opportunity to try at this  unlikely success, gave us a wonderful church family and lifelong friends including my precious and now husband Tom... but also from where we had to leave to finally succeed better in life.

We drove away at sunset as a fitting goodbye to this important chapter in my / our lives ends.
I thanked God for giving us this special place to live and grow and for bringing the right buyer to buy it.We didn't drive by the house at all yesterday, I guess I couldn't.... I was surprised at how  emotional this goodbye of Bisbee is for me.