A New Life

Walking on Liberty Street (!) with Sally

  It has been a long and horrifying eight months but this past Sunday evening we left Orion in Ann Arbor to begin his new life and for us to resume ours. It was amazing to open the door to his new apartment that he selected online while in the midst of chemotherapy in Boston. We had driven across five states with most of his belongings and immediately set to work finding tag sales to round out his furniture and kitchen supplies. By Sunday evening we had eaten at five or six Ann Arbor restaurants, spent time at the Farmer's Market, the People's Co-Op, and CVS and of course had walked by his new home at Randall Lab, home of the UMich physics department.

After a failed experiment with getting the university's wi-fi using an external antenna and amplifier Orion closed  a deal with Comcast for his internet access. It was interesting to watch him dealing with them in person and on the phone for what would be three days of frustrations. Sally and I stayed out of it, letting him solve this first of his new life's problems. He did.

Saying goodbye to the Boston terrier

Sally and I left him alone to unpack his suitcases and his mind. We took many walks through Sally's old college life. She graduated from Michigan in 1973 and had nothing but the best of memories to savor. Sunday evening came too quickly and we said our goodbyes after being inseparable for eight months.










 By the next morning we had left our son, holding our breaths for some word from him that he was coping. By evening he had his internet and we were treated with a steady stream of news about his meetings, his new office, and saw his apartment take shape on Facebook.

Orion's new office at Randall Lab

As of today, Thursday September 1, all is well. He starts classes in a week and has selected quantum theory, statistical mechanics and electromagnetism to sharpens his wits on.



 I do not expect to post again until his three month MRI in mid-late October.