At sixty two years old I returned from a peaceful two week vacation in Florida only to walk into a completely chaotic situation inside my own home. My sister June and I had traveled south to scatter the remaining ashes of my late husband Robert at Clearwater Beach just as he had always wished. I carried a small wooden keepsake urn containing a tiny portion of his ashes bringing it back to the house Robert and I had shared for twenty eight years. Instead of the quiet refuge I expected I unlocked my front door to find fifteen strangers sleeping in my living room on a sea of air mattresses. Suitcases blocked my staircase my refrigerator was completely empty and someone had even slept in my personal bed. Most disturbingly every single framed photograph of Robert had been removed from the walls and hidden away. When I reached out to my daughter Emily for an explanation she dismissed my concerns as dramatic and urged me not to embarrass her husband David or his relatives. Soon after my mother in law Linda appeared in my kitchen brazenly asking me to keep my voice down so her sleeping family would not be disturbed.
