I’ve been working out a deal to sell my mom and dad’s home. It causes conflicting feelings.

The property in that area has been changed to commercial for several years and it is the only home left now. It really isn’t practical anymore to keep it, but my heart rebels against selling it.

What I would love to do is fix it up and stay in it part of the year, but it is set on a hill in woods. With nothing and no one else around at night, it is a pretty scary place.

Still, I think about all the things that have taken place there and I want to live there again. My cousin Wayne assures me that the memories will always be with me and I don’t need a house that isn’t safe for me to stay in.

Still the house holds memories of my life and they are happy ones; the times we played badminton or horseshoes together in the yard; the place where we had a garden and the many good meals that came from it; the barbecue where my dad cooked in the summer; and the flowers my mom worked so hard to plant all over the yard

People are very different in the way they handle the separation of death. Some can’t have anything close to them that reminds them of that person. Others want to keep their things close to them.

I am one of those who want whatever belonged to them near me. I have things all around my home that belonged to my parents and grandparents.

There is a hat box that holds many of their personal items that I get out and look at once in a while. There are watches, rings and pins. I have a belt buckle that belonged to my great-great grandfather. It is a United States Army buckle with the date on it. I have a small knife my grandfather carried with him when he was surveying woods for the company he worked for. I have my grandmother’s watch and pin she wore when she dressed up. My dad had pins from the Navy and from his work at Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company. Mom had pins and awards she won at her job at Allied Chemical in Chesterfield County (Va.).

All of these are like opening a treasure box to me.

So I’m at odds over this idea of selling but I know if it can just be settled the conflict will be over and I can adjust and go forward with my life. Usually it is when things are unsettled that we have the most trouble with them. Once there is a conclusion we learn to deal with it and move on.

Isn’t it amazing how resilient the human mind is? How we can adjust to almost any situation and learn to deal with it? The mind works that way in order for us to survive.

Most of the time it is good that we can accept things and move on. At other times it is not so good. When it means that it adjusts to evil or to the violence and immorality we see now in movies and television, I think it is not a good thing. The mind is something we must keep a close watch on, less it fools us into becoming something different than what we want to be.

We need to evaluate situations and determine what is the wise thing to accept and what is the wrong thing to accept; what is the right thing to do and what is the wrong thing to do. In the days we live in it has become very important to evaluate everything against your own standards before you make a decision. Evaluate and make decisions on what you know is right.