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 and on weekends driving her shiny red car to get it washed and all waxed up. Today I can just see the hood of that car inside the garage all dusty and dirty. The dog died a couple years back and Mr. J passed away too, now Mrs. J has fallen and broken her hip and can no longer live here 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 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 would fall from time to time getting out of the car and would call me for help getting him to his feet in the garage.
I can only imagine how horrific it must be for this woman who has lived almost a century and took care of so many to end up this way unable to live in her own home on her own. Perhaps 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 some of those memories. "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 it is?
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 and get to be my age, you have to prepare whatever that means to you and still, you will wonder even worry, what it will be like to have no one you have ever known in your entire life to comfort you, hold you, or even visit with in our greatest emotional need when we cannot fend for ourselves. With no one around, I am left to have these conversations with myself quietly and with much fear and regret that I allowed things to get this way. My thoughts have gone from what will become of me and my things, to getting rid of things as fast as I can before I get to a point where it's all left to someone who was never around to know what I might want or care about when I would have been able to tell them. But I did this and it is what it is.
Across the street is a glimpse of the reality that is in store for a lot of us at this stage when we will ache for warmth and care and concern but are left with only the stone-cold, horrifying, and all too real.
Watching this through my dining room window I've shed a few tears that may well be not only for Mrs. J and what is happening to her but if I'm to be completely honest for me as well as I get an up-close preview of my own future.
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 reasons you have convinced yourself are warranted and they may well be. 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. As I have been having to go through her things on my own I've found it to be an emotional death and yet cathartic all at the same time because this is how she wanted it to be with me doing this because I was the only one who knew her wishes and would handle everything exactly how 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 this either.
These conversations I have with myself do serve a purpose for me personally as the time I take writing keeps me from an emotional breakdown when I feel it coming on and I could use a few less of those to be sure. 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 that much tougher to do. Purge that which you have just piled up and give special things to those you want to have them while you are still here. Make a Will and spell it all out so that when that time comes that you can't speak for yourself, it won't fall to those already hurting from the loss if there are those people in your life, to sort through your things and have questions you aren't here to answer. Or worse it falls to someone who was never there in the first place and doesn't even know 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.
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