I have just finished sorting my mother’s things in preparation for her move from the hospital, where she has been since a nasty spill in mid-July, to a single room in the complex care wing of her small city’s old age home. (Er, I guess that would be “seniors’ village”; that’s what this one calls itself.)
Not counting her clothes, her belongings fill six small boxes.
This has been an emotional summer in so many ways, and I am trying to muster up some cheerfulness because that is what Mom most needs to see from me; my inner self is howling like a baby.
I’m glad she didn’t die; the facility she is going to will provide stellar care – we have another family member and several friends living there, and are personal friends with several staffers – one of the nicer things about having grown up near a smaller community (the city proper has a population of 10,000 people, though the service area is closer to 30,000); Mom herself states that she is more ready to make the move; there is no way she will ever be able to manage living in her own home, what with her physical limitations and increasing frailty.
But still.
Six boxes.
Eighty-eight years of life; so many accomplishments; so much work done. All passed; all put behind her. All that is left is her memories, and six small boxes.
Sob.
There, doesn’t that sound melancholy?! Onward and upward, that’s the theme I need to embrace. It’ll be a far cry better than the hospital, is what Mom reminded me today, and she said something about there being a certain freedom in stripping oneself of all those things; it’s down to essentials from here on in. Oh, and to remember to go through my shelves one more time, and to pack her up a box or two of books, and to keep my eyes open for new reading for her.
Comfort in books is something my mom knows a lot about, and she’s more than passed that down to me. And with that thought, I’ll sign off for tonight. It will all be okay. But just for tonight, I’m sad.
My mom in 1959. Portrait taken in Reedley, California, just before her marriage and move to British Columbia. One of the photos I’ve scanned and enlarged to put in the “treasure box” just outside her room; a reminder to herself and those around her of the vital and still-young person hidden behind the elderly mask.
Leaves & Pages 
This is what happens. My mother died last year at 88, after living in the Hebrew Home for the Aged in New York for the previous decade, since she had lost her sight. And she had about the same number of boxes as your mother. Her “estate,” in the end, was about $3, and I spent it on a candle. I asked my rabbi cousin, who’d grown up with her, why it was so sad, when after all she had lived to extreme old aged, and died peacefully in her sleep. “Because,” he answered, “death is sad.”
My mother-in-law died this year, at 90. Sad again. If you’d like to read about this, I’ve written about both deaths on my blog.
http://lightbrightandsparkling.blogspot.com/2013/04/diva-is-no-more.html
http://lightbrightandsparkling.blogspot.com/2012/01/smooth-transition.html
http://lightbrightandsparkling.blogspot.com/2012/02/family-ring.html
Diana Birchall
Thank you, Diane. It does help to have that said, to know that to be sad is “normal”. The shared experience is comforting.
I remember that when my father died – in awful circumstances; I sat beside him as he literally breathed his last when removed from a respirator in an intensive care unit – the most comforting thing that happened was a conversation with a reception clerk who was checking me in at the hotel near the hospital where Dad was being cared for. I asked for the “hospital” discount and she stopped, looked keenly at me, and asked me what was going on – I obviously looked stressed, and I had inquired about wheelchair accessibility because I had my already-wheelchair-dependent mother waiting for me in the car. Then she shared her own experience of losing her husband only a year or so before then, and told me that I was to go ahead and just BE sad; to politely ignore anyone who spouted the “Well, it was really for the best” platitudes, and to grieve for the person I loved, because that is the fit and proper thing to do.
I noticed then, as I am noticing now, that when one expresses sadness one is frequently told that that is a socially unacceptable emotion, that one shoud be grateful for what has been in the past; that one should move on; that the present situation is “for the best”.
Yes, we know these things, and fully accept them.
But “sad” is real, too.
Thank you.
Many, many, many hugs.
I know that sadness too.
That’s a lovely picture of your mom.
Thank you, Jenny and Lisa. Still sad deep down inside, but was cheered by Mom’s evident pleasure today at the thought of getting out of a 4-bed hospital ward.
“I am quite looking forward to this move”, she calmly stated, which, for her, is the equivalent of over-the-top enthusiasm. 😉
And then we talked about a new wheelchair (my husband is teasing her a bit by promoting the idea of a zippy electric one; Mom is resisting firmly and politely) and discussed Mary Stewart; I’ve just read “This Rough Magic”, and she’s halfway through “The Ivy Tree”. She’s promised be finished and to hand it over to me for reading on our upcoming trip to the coast.
Onward…
That’s a lovely picture of your mom! I think she makes an excellent point that fewer possessions mean freedom. I hope she continues to recover in her new home. I’m sure it will be world’s more pleasant than the hospital.
From “The Ocean at the end of the Lane” by Neil Gaiman
“I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside. Outside they’re big and seem like they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they did when they were young. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups…not one in the whole wide world.”
My mom always said she felt the physical side of old, but it surprised her when she looked in the mirror because she didn’t feel old on the inside.