Farewell, New York - A Mother's Prayer

New York is a wonderful city to visit.  For young people, it's an exciting place to live, work and play.


Our elder son loves living in New York and has worked and lived in New York City since he graduated from Yale a few years ago.

He has worked in Manhattan, lived  a decent apartment with a yard in the Upper West side neighborhood. Because of him being in New York, we have had many excuses to visit this city. 

Moving Day for Er's Belongings!

 However, his work hour has been exceedingly demanding depriving him of a normal social life. Therefore, he decided to call it quit from his job in New York and landed a job recently on the west coast.

Rosie and I went to New York and helped him relocate. It took a little while to find a trustworthy mover We finally found one and thank goodness they did show up and came on time on moving day!

It was great having my sister there helping me to supervise the move and  as the moving crew repacked some of the contents.


It did not seem like Er had a lot to move but it took from 9a.m to almost 1pm to complete the move. The most surprising part of the move was that we were required to pay almost $1500.00 more than the estimated quote!

I was so shocked and upset but managed to bargain it down to half of the extra charge.

It was quite an experience. But the movers did a good job wrapping everything carefully and we just hope that everything would get there undamaged.

After the move was completed, Rosie and I visited the Rockefeller Centre and I took her to the bus terminal to board the bus home.

On the eve of moving from the New York apartment, Kristen, Er\s flatmate played her keyboard while I sang for the last time in the apartment living room.

The temporary wall even had insulation. 

The next day was a busy day for us when both the wall removal company and Kristen's mover arrived on the same morning with only an hour apart.

Er's two bedroom apartment was converted back to one bedroom when the lease was terminated at the end of July.
The wall removers did a good job removing the "bubble" wall and there was no damage or marks on the ceiling or the floor where the wall once stood. Good job!

The bubble wall was removed in Er's  Manhattan Apt.

In the confusion of moving, Kristen forgot her gym bag, and a couple of other things, she came back to get them and even gave me a hand to remove the mirrors on the wall.

Finally, when everything was done, cleaned and garbage removed, I took one last look at the empty place.

This New York apartment was my son's home for the past five / six years. He started his first job here at one of the big firms. We had many good times here visiting him.

I know he loves New York and has made many friends here. After inspecting the place for the last time, I left my son's apartment with mixed emotions:
- sad for him for leaving his friends and network he has built  in this most exciting city on earth; happy for him to start a new life, a more relaxed hopefully more relationship centered life in SF.

The Backyard in Er\s Manhattan Apartment

Thank you, God for preparing a new job in a new city for our son! 

With this new job, we pray he would have a little more leisure time to reflect on his spiritual life, find a great church, experience revival;  please guide him, protect him and enable him to use his talents to help other people, make this world a better place and find his soul mate with whom to share his life. Amen!

R.T. Manhattan, New York City
July, 2013