The family is there and taking a lifetime of things out of an elderly woman's house across the street. Mrs. J lived here long before me and not that long ago could be seen walking her chubby dog down the street every day. On weekends she would take her car to get it washed up and shiny. Today I can just see the hood of that car inside the garage all dusty and dirty. She would never have wanted that car looking like that but like so many other things the life in that car was her, and now she can no longer drive. The dog died a couple years back and Mr. J too, now Mrs. J has fallen and broken her hip and can no longer live on her own.
"How is Mrs. J I ask her daughter, oh she's OK we have her in a memory care long-term care facility. We're having to collect and sell her things and her house to pay the facility it's expensive.."
Mrs. J loved that fat dog and that shiny red car and I liked seeing her here and going about her life taking care of herself and her husband who wasn't well for a long time. Mr J. would fall now and then getting out of the car and Mrs J. would call on me for help getting him to his feet.
I can only imagine how horrific it must be for this woman who has lived almost a century taking care of herself and others only to end up old, unable, and taken out of her home. Maybe this is why God gives so many of us memory problems when we get to this stage so we can more easily let go of what was once our lives. "When can I go home," Mrs. J asks her daughter who has to tell her mother "this is your home now mom," and then suffer the gut-wrenching acceptance as her mom just says "OK.." But is it OK?
As I sit here living my life of solitude I can't help but think about what will become of me at this stage. If you have chosen to live your life alone you had better get prepared for what all that is going to mean later in your life. What will it be like to have no one when you need help? There will be times when having someone to talk to would be comforting, but you won't have that.. Are you ready for that? With no one around, I am left to have these conversations with myself quietly and with some degree of regret that I allowed things to get this way. My thoughts circle around from what will become of me and my things, to getting rid of things as fast as I can before someone else who was never around in the first place is left to deal with my stuff, and possibly me..
Across the street is a glimpse of the reality ahead. When we ache even quietly for someone to care and we will at some point, but are faced with nothing but the stone-cold reality that no one really cares anymore, you've become just unclaimed freight..
Watching this through my dining room window I've shed a few tears that may well not only be for Mrs. J and what is happening to her, but for what likely will become of me as well..
There is a moral to this real-life story and it is this, do not think that you will somehow avoid paying a heavy price for pushing people out of your life over the years no matter what the cause or "good" reasons you've convinced yourself there are. You WILL pay a heavy price at some point in your life I can attest to that. I have thanked God for the blessings of being able to be with my mom when she needed me all the way to her last breath. Going through her things by myself has been an emotional clash of the finality of death and cathartic often at the same time. This is how she wanted it with me doing all this myself because I was the only one who knew her wishes and would handle everything exactly as she wanted.
A year and 6 months it's been since mom passed away and I'm still not finished sorting through her things but the people across the street did everything in just a few days. Not sure what to make of that and I'm certain if they knew I was over here writing about it they wouldn't know what to make of me either..
These literary conversations that I have with myself do actually serve a purpose by distracting me for the time it takes to write and postponing the emotional breakdowns that inevitably come. If these words are stumbled upon by someone else in a similar situation I will leave you with this. Get your own things in order now before grief and sadness make the job take a toll on you that you may not be equipped to handle. Purge that which you have just piled up and donate everything else. Make a Will and spell it all out so that when that time comes and you can't speak for yourself, it won't fall to someone else who was never there in the first place and doesn't know much if anything about you.
Grief is still present and ready to stop me from getting on with some sort of life. Tonight I sat for at least a couple of hours in mom's house with the lights and tv off and the only sign of life that broke the silence was the sound of the clocks reminding me how fast time goes.
It's 4am now and I'm without sleep. I have to get up in just a few short hours and for no other reason than to check to make sure I'm still alive.
Searching for peace.
