In praise of togetherness

   For the past 4 or 5 months, every weekend I’ve spent at least one day, 4 to 8 hours, at Mom's house, throwing out the past. Some weekends, I do skip. But I do something else toward the estate settling, so I tell myself that’s OK. I’m not failing.
   Now the floors downstairs are clear and the house smells better. But still there is more debris.
   And as you can imagine — and might know from experience — it’s heartwrenching work.
   Saturday, Michael happened to call while I was in the middle of Mom’s yearbook from her sophomore year: I bawled all over him. Which I try not to do, because it gets old.
   Also, he had already been there, first thing in the morning, shearing the front yard with his hedge trimmer. He had already done his bit for the weekend — and the week, because as has lately on Thursdays, he moved the garbage cans back from the street so I don’t have to drive over again. (I put them out on Tuesday night.)
   His reaction was just like Michael: “What can I do to help?” while yawning. After we hung up, it hit me that it WAS time to ask for help. Working alone is too upsetting and the mess — finite, it is finite — was overwhelming.
   I texted my buddy who a few years back cleared a hoard out of her mother's house and enjoyed it so much she has helped other friends with their mothers’ houses. She likes turning mess into order; she likes shopping at estate sales, and she loves categorizing things — she’s an archivist.
   It is time to get help. She'll start working with me Thursday.
   This is just friendship. Friendship.
   ALSO, I asked, and this morning Fiona skipped church so she, Michael and I could work together.
   WORKING TOGETHER IS GREAT. It was a relief to have her making the decisions about what to keep and what to toss from the heap of Talen’s and Song’s childhood things ... peed upon by cats for years.
   We emptied both of the attics — except for Dad’s big desk in the garage attic, which I want to ask Joe and Talen to bring down next time Joe’s in town with Nikki. Hopefully, he remembers how to assemble that desk, so we can sell it.
   Fiona and I made real headway in the blue bedroom, which seems to have been one big litter box for the cats.
   We made progress. Doesn’t look like it, but we did. Half of a Bagster is full.
   Meanwhile, Michael went through every page of the ancient tax returns from the attic, and sorted out pages that he will burn later.
   We found Talen or Song’s boom box, and it works. We listened to Ted Talks.
   We found a pretty tile Nikki made for Mom years ago.
   We found Dad’s uniforms, and they smell OK. We found a big framed photo of one of his ships — the Pocono? the Little Rock?
   We still haven't found his fancy-dress sword, but we have a plan to work together again next weekend.

Landscape is soulscape

   


   
Today I began cleaning another room in what used to be my mom's house. 

AFTER

   So far, I've cleared and cleaned the front hallway, the downstairs and upstairs bathrooms (with repairs), the kitchen (with repairs), the eating area, the back porch, parts of the front porch, the crawlspace and some of the yard. 
   The floors are not spotless, because the vinyl is stained, but they are no longer filmed with black hairs, grime and silt. The silt is gone, and with it much of the cat funk.
   This new room is a step back to square one. Back into the landfill. It's awful. 
   Again and again, I pick up what seem to have been perfectly serviceable things, relatively new, that have been ruined by cat pee, insects, disregard. Once-good clothes. Heaps of them. Worthless. 
   Cat smell doesn't come out of clothing unless it's treated and washed. Most of the items are used underwear or stained shirts and wouldn't have been donation-worthy even were they clean. But also there are jackets and pants that would probably come through a drycleaning looking nearly new. But it would take drycleaning — they aren't clothing you could soak in oxidizing something or other and scrub at the stains one at a time and then run through a washing machine five times to get out the animal smell. That would be a noble effort — spending time and money to make them nice and then tossing them into a donation box. But it would devour even more of my life than this project already has, and it would be a misapplication of the trust's money. Some of the siblings need to inherit as much as they can inherit.

   There is too much of this ruined clothing. 
   And I regret the bulk I'm sending to the landfill. But it would be worse to try to donate things that have been walked on and peed upon for years. 
   Making the decision to toss the stuff out used to give me a grim sense of superiority — “Look what these fools have made me do” — but I'm over that. There are layers in this debris field, evidence of a cycle that is sorrowful. 
  • There was a need born of hope, and energy, and it led to purchases. 
  • But then the hope failed, the energy died. 
  • Depression and a sense of purposeless futility descended. 
  • The things drifted to the floor. The cats marauded over them. 
   Dirt settled — until another bout of hope attacked, bringing more purchases.

   What I'm looking at is depression. Its effects and aftereffects.

   On the other hand, I'm invigorated by the awfulness of the mess.
   This I did not expect. 
   The room's disgusting ... I should be sick. And upset. It smells bad! 
   But instead I know the mess is finite. And it can be relocated. 

   And I feel so fortunate. My life has only had ups and downs; it has not ever included a spiral into Dis. My life has been so easy. I mean, look at this sweet man! Look what he is doing. He does it a lot. Our house is overcrowded, messier than ever and jammed with stuff, and yet he doesn't stop trying.


   Also, I am no longer able to imagine that I am not complicit in the burgeoning Mount Trash I never stop being astonished to see looming in the distance as I drive along 107. I'm adding to that sorry mountain. That is my mountain of decisions.
   
   This afternoon, driving home from the house, as usual I passed the chainstore node. For three years, on my way home from visits to the nursing home, I would swing in there for what even I realized was retail therapy. Many sweaters and youthful blouses hanging in my closet were purchased after I raced weeping away from my sweet mother and the problem of the fact that she was still overjoyed by life in that unfair unjust undeserved predicament that was inexorably rotting her body.
   I realized today as I motored past without stopping that I haven't stopped, not even once, in these months of cleaning at Mom's. 
   I don't want therapy. I have it.