By 
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0 Laura Menze, Lydia’s House Occupational Therapist
On the afternoon of the opening of the Virginia Coffey Place, I walked through the units and turned on lights before making the final descent with the mop bucket, kicking off my boots wary of getting them wet. Mopping those steep stairs for all the attendees was a christening of that space, but not in the champagne over the bow of a ship or the baptism sort of christening, both unique and singular events, rather it was a christening of a life lived in that space, a life that will include sweeping and mopping those stairs an innumerable number of times in the coming years. Going barefoot in that space felt just as much as crossing a threshold into ‘open’ as did watching the door unlocked and guests enter in. The quotidian shapes us and as I traversed those steps, I wondered how I would be shaped by making home in that place, by living as a neighbor to that place, working with and being in relationship with the families that make home there. We are excited and wait with hope to watch the lives of our guests turned neighbors unfold over the longer story within the Virginia Coffey Place.
