Lessons From Moving Mom

I have renewed respect for anyone who has cleaned out a parent’s home. And a renewed determination to try to make it easier for my children when the time comes.

Recently, we moved our mom to a personal care room. It’s lovely, she’s happy, but it is the size of a hotel room. She lived in a two-bedroom apartment. Although it had three walk-in closets, it didn’t seem to be that big of a task.

Until we got started.

For over a week, with the amazing help of family, I boxed, and tossed, and worried over, and freaked at all the stuff we found packed into corners, and stuffed into boxes.

Some days, it felt like a slowly unfolding nightmare. I was so wired from needing to get it done I barely slept and ate and I felt as if my body was vibrating like a tuning fork.

Our family went through picture albums, my sister and I found presents that were never used. Memories of the past were always nearby. There was plenty of laughter, sadness, and drama.

And we had it easy. All we did was move mom from her two-bedroom apartment to a personal care unit in the same complex. She is delighted with her newfound freedom.

No stuff to take care of anymore. No worry about where to put things, or what to keep. There is no room. What she has now is all that will fit in her space.

It’s a new era for all of us. I hope we use it as a stepping stone to an increased understanding of what things mean, and a clearing out of anything that is burdening us.

With so much that comes our way these days, it’s hard to constantly monitor what to keep, what to throw away, or what to pass on to someone else.

I kept my mother’s spoon, as I promised her so long ago. When I use it, I will remember all the delicious meals that she cooked for us and how concerned she always is that we eat well.

As we cleaned and packed, we invited people who passed by in the hall to come shop in the apartment. We got to experience the happiness on people’s faces as they discovered treasures.

I think if my mom could have handled doing this herself, or done it when she could handle it, she would have loved being the recipient of that joy.

I am renewing my agreement with myself to not keep too much stuff. To review what I have kept and make sure it’s something that will serve me, and others, in the future. To give away things now when I get to experience the joy of the experience.

Not only physical items but also emotional things, memories that hurt, or ideas that didn’t work do not need to be kept around to hurt us again.

Wonderful memories can lighten our days. But those memories of what we could have done, should have done, wish we had done differently that have been stuffed in the cabinets, closets, and boxes of our mind can be viewed now.

We can learn from them, and then let them go. Like all that hidden stuff in my mom’s house, they are burdens.

I want to do this kind of review at least once a year if not more for the things in my house.

But I want to challenge myself to search in the recesses of my thinking much more often to make sure there is not something stuffed back there, long neglected, that needs to be brought into the light.

On the last day, sitting alone in her apartment, as I waited for the movers to take what was left to a charity organization, I was grateful that I got to do this while mom is still alive.

As I left her old empty apartment and walked across to her new building to visit her in her new space, I tried my best to not take the old useless regrets and resentments with me, to let them go, the same way we let go of what was in the house.

Our family can start anew in this new era. Free of all that stuff.

Perhaps you’ll join me in this clearing out of what is no longer needed, and as I do a better job of caring for what I have now.