By Kim Lewis
The countdown is four days…. four days until my 69 year old mother downsizes and moves into a smaller apartment. Luckily, she is healthy and independent which makes the moving process a bit easier on her (and me). However, this move is difficult because of the physical toll it is taking on her. She has commented on more than one occasion, “this is a lot harder than last time I moved.” So, in addition to the hard, physical work of packing boxes and cleaning closets, she is also dealing with the emotions of discarding and giving away items that hold special meaning and memories for her.
Some of these items, such as ridding her closet of clothing that has not been worn in years, have given her a feeling of empowerment. Hauling seven huge bags to Goodwill gave her a sense of accomplishment. Other items though, such as photo albums, have caused her to be more reminiscent. A couple of weeks ago she gave me an album from my early teen years. We looked at it together with my sons who are about the same age as I was in the album. She was able to release the album to me and it was a nice bonding experience having three generations looking through the pages together.
She is still holding onto her three sets of fine china. Why? I have no idea. She no longer entertains using her china and I would be happy to keep the sets for her at my house. I suppose there are some things, that while they are just “things” they still hold strong memories for her to the past. I am hoping there aren’t too many of these items because she will now have limited space. She is also going through the process of packing and paying a moving company to move her so I would hate for her to go to the trouble and expense only to run out of room in her new home. It is not worth it to me though to argue with her, so we will just wait and see.
On Saturday I plan to help her finish packing and take care of any last minute details. I hope she will be ready to meet the moving truck on Sunday with excitement about her new home and I know she will feel relief that this huge project is almost over.
Reference: “Helping a Senior Downsize” by Allison Bisbey Colter
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