Aug 17

Written by:
8/17/2010 1:14 PM 

I think anyone who has had experience with moving a loved one from home to a nursing home or assisted living facility would agree that the hardest part of the decision is the decision itself. It can take years to finalize, no matter how unsafe or unwise staying home would be. I know—with my mom, for example, it took me three years of sustained cajoling to get her to accept leaving her home of 51 years. It wasn’t just the thought of moving to a facility, a large part of it was the grim, painful need to sort through decades of accumulated stuff.

Let’s face it, all but the most fastidious of us has too much stuff lying around—old newspapers, boxes of magazines, broken souvenirs, long-forgotten books and vinyl records, remnants of old hobbies, you name it. You have to leave an abode with a capacious basement, attic and garage space for an apartment or small home with, very typically, two large closets and a few shelves.

I learned much from the experience. My (at the time) 87-year-old mom spent a strenuous month sorting things into boxes and trash bags. We could only help her sporadically as I lived more than 200 miles away and was employed full-time. She got some help from a well-meaning real estate agent, but this didn’t prevent her from saving too much, while dispersing some truly valuable items, including a fairly pristine tin soldier set dating back to the 1940s, to a clearance company for virtually nothing. When we finally ended up at the other end of the move, an assisted living facility 200 miles away, my wife, a friend and I found ourselves hip-deep in cardboard boxes covering her new living room wall-to-wall. A day and a half later we had managed to store some of it in her two closets, crammed shelving unit and under her bed, and a good deal more in my own attic and garage.

When Mom passed away nearly six years later, my wife, son and I spent two days cleaning out the place, distributing clothes, furniture and old appliances to private homes, clothing drops and second-hand furniture establishments, and experiencing probably the most physically challenging work we had done in years. That she was able to store as much as she did in that small apartment remains to me a small miracle.

So here are a few bits of hard-won advice I would offer:

1. When the time comes for the Big Move, be prepared for an extended engagement with Mom or Dad’s stuff. Exhaustion will be mutual
2. Relocation services and second-hand dealers can help, but be very careful about the value they place on particular items. See if you can get an independent appraisal of some particularly unique items
3. Be prepared for an intense physical workout in unpacking, storing and otherwise distributing the stuff that made the cut (an experience that will be repeated and add still more to the stress of a loved one’s demise)
4. Look seriously into all storage possibilities both within and outside the facility, including self-storage companies that might offer senior discounts
5. Be prepared to be amazed, not only by the sheer quantity of stuff, but by the memories that some of it may evoke, including family stories and history you may not have been aware of

Oh, yes, that last point is the positive side of all this. Stuff is stuff, but it is Mom and Dad’s, and can yield rich rewards when approached with respect.