Home Sweet Home

A moving company, my nephew and a few friends have finally gotten my Mom from her too small two bedroom house into a one bedroom apartment. Every step along the way was a battle as I tried to pursuade her to rid herself of fourty years of excess stuff. Do you really need three vcr's and a dvd? Love my Mom but...why when you redecorate do you keep the old style stuff? Why would you think that someone else would want it if you didn't? I never thought that she would actually sell her home and move to an apartment, no less. Forty years we lived in EHC all I remember is her saying that she did not like the town,or the house chosen by my Dad. That it was too small for a family of five, yada, yada, yada...I think of myself as a reasonable adult and decide that all these boxes are at her new home, not mine. If she is happy so am I. When I left you could barely get the bathroom door shut or walk down the hall. But when I noticed we were carring the same boxes back and forth I nearly lost it. Irony abounds there were about three hundred pieces of plastic storage ware and three sets of cookware for a woman who only cooks apple pies and specialty dog foods. (that's another story). My dear Mom has become like my paternal Grandmom who was never her favorite person. For forty years all I heard was that Gran was a packrat. She believed in saving everything for recycling and reuse but come on when you cannot walk down the halls, hang a cost in the closet, enough already. I guess the stress was overwhelming for Mum, now 70 plus years of age.
Remarkably she transformed that energy into something positive. I hope that she'll be happy in the new place without all the maintenance and garden chores. As a parting gesture I sat with a friend on the covered patio that my Dad built so many years ago. I will miss the old house and the fenced in garden. I know my Dad would not approve of me venting this way. I can almost hear him now saying "kid what goes on in this house, stays in this house." Too bad that didn't apply to stuff! s