The Story of Her Life is Told by the Clutter in the Drawers

My search through my mom’s hutch drawers uncovered important legal papers along with party invitations, photographs from last year and 70 years ago, bibles ( and as far as I know she’s not that religious) and  lots of empty envelopes – some used, some new.  They were the last of drawers to empty.  It’s a daunting job and yet it’s interesting to read notes she’s drafted to former doctors and tenants letting them know how she was wronged or justified in her actions.  Her piles of information are random – no rhyme or reason – just life’s stuff thrown together.  I’ve resorted to shoving it all into large black garbage bags and hauling it home to sort later.  My bedroom is beginning to look like a hoarder lives there.

None of my siblings have volunteered to journey from their comfortable homes to travel this emotional trip with me.  In a few minutes I plan to call one of them and threaten that’ll I’ll call another if he doesn’t show up soon.  He hides from me behind unanswered phone calls and emails and text messages.  I think this tactic will get him motivated and moving.  I’ll let you know, Reader.  In the meantime declutter your life yourself instead of letting someone else do it for you.

What is it about a fire that’s so appealing?

Is it the crackle and spark?  Is it the smell that seeps into the very fabric of your clothes and gives you the feeling of a midsummer camping trip?  Or is it the flames that lick at the logs lapping over and around and up?  Or is it just simply the heat that warms?  A, B, C, D, or all of the above?  Choose all – because it’s all of it for me.  I even love the stirring of the ashes and logs to the perfect spot for the perfect burn.  I’ve only used the tongs and the poker to date.  Tomorrow the shovel and broom.   I’ve got to search the garage for a metal bucket to dump the mounting simmering ashes that have collected in the bottom of the fireplace. Shovel. Dump.  And begin again.

Ahhhh! Snow Day

This may be the first time in all my years of teaching that our school was first delayed, then closed without one flake of snow falling on the ground.  But, it’s coming.  A winter storm that will leave 3″ to 6″ of fresh, fluffy flakes on the already frozen ground.

Usually warnings are ignored and school is on.  All day we watch the swirling flakes through the cold panes of glass.  More and more and more falls.  Until finally a decison is made.  We’ll close early.  Paniced parents rush in and pull their children from class.  High school is dismissed first, then middle, and finally it’s our turn.  By time the first bus arrives there are few children left and the clock reads the usual dismissal time.  So much for early dismissal.

Then it’s time for my long commute home.  The worst was last year – a little over 2 hours for what is normally a 15 minute drive.  But not today. Today I’ll be warm and happy at home with a fire roaring in my new fireplace (as of last night).  But that’s another story.

New Year Pressure

It starts to build on December 26th – the pressure to think of and then commit to and follow through with a New Year’s Resolution.  Like Liz, I have in the past set goals that are too lofty and unobtainable.  I have learned that it’s best to set small goals that over time can make a big difference.  Here’s a few I’m thinking about for this year.

Count to 10 before talking to my mother.  (That one was her idea).

Keep my mouth closed for at least 30 seconds before reacting to news that my kids may bring my way.  Don’t even say, “What?!”

Erg 48,910 by the end of April 2010.  That will put my lifetime meters at 500,000.

Get out-of-town for at least 3 nights with the family.

Ok, well that’s enough.  Too many and I’ll feel bogged down all year like a rooster with a dog’s teeth around its neck.

How’d My Potato Get Over There?

You put it there a few minutes ago when they took your steak away to try again.  She forked it off her dinner plate and into the salad bowl full of blue cheese dressing.  And then continued to eat her salad around it.  A few minutes later the new steak arrived  and she shoved her salad plate to the right.  It wasn’t a minute later when she spied the half-eaten baked potato soaking in salad and asked, “How’d my potato get over there?”

Delete, Delete, Delete!

No one can call get ahold of you, I say.  I need to listen to them again and write the names and numbers down, she replied.    Let’s do it now.  And Reader, she finally agreed.  But mind you this was at least a 20 minute conversation and a replaying of the 14 messages 5 times.  She thought they were recent messages.  They weren’t.  I called 3 of the people back and they laughed at me – no, I called several months ago.  So we deleted – one by one – all the messages on my mother’s answering machine.  And then we charged her cell phone and said to take it to the retirement home so we can get ahold you there.  It’s a brand new cell.  Her second one.  The first one died on the charger that she left in the bathroom for several years.  She still doesn’t know how they work.  But once again I reprogrammed everything – voice mail, ring tone, volume – and said,  Please take it with you.  She won’t.  She has already laid aside the panic button the retirement home wants her to wear around her neck.  I found it on top of the 40-year-old stereo set that she left behind in her townhouse.

The Keys are in the Garbage

Yes.  Yesterday my mother moved into the home and she let me throw the hundreds of keys away (after they had been transported to the new place, of course).  And the file box of names no longer remembered and  membership cards from the 70s.

I arrived in time to help unwrap and position furniture into place.  It’s livable.  Naturally there’s a to do list:  get light bulbs (they came up missing in the move), bring over a garbage can (I had borrowed David’s next door to dump the keys) and a few glasses and plates and silverware, hook up the TV to cable (which for a brief moment she wasn’t sure was hers – Is that my TV?), unwrap the photos and stuff for the bookshelves and hutch, make the bed.

She didn’t plan on spending the night yesterday so there’s time today to take care of these things today.  And then there’s the matter of cleaning up what’s left behind.

It’s a good thing I was not witness to this.

What an embarrassment!  The Bearcats scored only 19 points by the half and didn’t even break 50 to finish the game last night against UAB.  I listened to it on the radio since I didn’t get the viewing channel on cable.  It was even hard to listen to – missed shot after missed shot.  What happened to that great team that started the season with so many games in the win column?  Where’d they go?  I want them back!

Confused and I’m Not Surprised

I called my mom Sunday night to discover that the next day she’d be moving.  I had a hunch it would be like this.  Really, I imagined that a week or so after she had already moved she’d call me.

This happened once before.  I called home one summer day and the operator interrupted the ringing to tell me in a pre-recorded message that this number no longer was in use.  After several more phone calls to siblings and neighbors, I learned that my mom had moved.  I was older then and living on my own, but a phone call would have been nice.

So to hear her say that the movers would arrive the next day at 11 or 10 am – she couldn’t remember which time – was no surprise.  Her dementia had kicked in.  I quickly arranged for a half day off work and within minutes of leaving my work place today found out that the move would be Friday – not today, after all.  I decided to buckle up and head toward the home anyway where she and her friend were just sitting down to lunch.  Thirty or so minutes later I, too, was at the dining table, pulled up close to chat.

My mom mentioned that one of the women who worked at the home wanted to talk to me – there was paperwork to complete.  I excused myself, found the lady in charge and obtained the required medical forms, then trudged back upstairs to rejoin them at the dining table  We spent the next hour filing out the monstrous forms and then hunting down the notary to stamp and witness and sign and finalize.  It was emotional, but not as bad as it would later become.

The community relations woman now gave us a tour of the newly painted and carpeted apartment and we talked of furniture arrangement and moving day.  It should be simple.  Should mind you is the operative word.  This is after all my mother.

We then headed back to where she currently lives and tried to have a conversation about which pieces she would move and which pieces would stay behind for others.  There is a large hutch she’d like to take.  I said let’s see what’s in the drawers.  Here’s some of what I found:  batteries never opened form 1998, random pictures of her childhood mixed with photos of both husbands and a Christmas file box with names and addresses of people she no longer remembers or knows, hundreds of keys from apartments she no longer rents, a large matchbook collection, a vaccination record and a permit to travel abroad – neither of them hers, a social security card that belonged to her dead husband’s first wife.  When are you going to let go of these things.  Not now she replied.  I have to look through them. I say dump it all and don’t look back.  You haven’t touch these things in years.  In time we all gave up and decided we needed food more than the current conversation.   Wish us luck on Friday.

The Christmas Tree is Up

And I’m feeling good.  Decorating the old branches brought me more holiday spirit than I thought it would bring.  I’d been hestitating, putting it off, creating excuses since Thanksgiving.  But I knew that this weekend I’d have to move forward.  Yesterday my kids and I hauled the tree out of the attic and quickly assembled its parts.  Next, the fluffing out of each branch before circling the multicolored big lights around the tree.  Today was ornament day – each carefully selected and hung in just the right place while listening to a mix of holiday tunes.  Later the stockings were hung and a sparse few other decorations.  It wasn’t so bad.  It beats the Wal-Mart desk top tree I considered buying last week.  Or the Norfolk Island Pine.