When Mom moved to Florida over 2 years ago, we hired a huge moving van. We carefully calculated what she needed for her new apartment, what I wanted to keep to use in my house, what to store in my garage and what Madeline and my boys might want. Porter and Bob took a few things that they wanted. It left Mom's house in Shelby half (over half, actually) full.
The moving van arrived and unloaded the few things into my garage that belonged there and headed over to Stratford Court. We filled up Mom's place and got it decorated pretty quickly. Jim's brother, Tommy and his wife Linda, were in Florida. They are the world's best helpers. I think they live to help people move, mend, fix and refurbish. I have always thought that Jim and I were hard workers, but oftentimes Tommy and Linda make us look like lightweights! In their true fashion, they helped us move furniture, organize, hang pictures, unpack boxes, haul off empties and just simply do what they could to make Mom's move go as smoothly as possible. I have always said that Tommy and Linda go above and beyond, and I think this was one of those times. With the help of those two, Jimmy, and Jim and myself, we got Mom's house organized and decorated and 'just like home' in a matter of 2 days. I have often heard that 'it takes a village' and 'many hands make light work.' In this case, it is true. I am so grateful that my Mom's dramatic life change happened with as little stress as possible. I know she was pleased with her new surroundings. She insisted on spending that very first night there alone!
On the other hand, my garage became a storage unit and my car has yet to fit back inside it! I have almost forgotten what it was like to pull my car full of groceries into my garage and unload it without rain or without worrying about the cat running out or things like that. But it is a small price to pay for the merging of two households. I am grateful that Mom's move went as smoothly as it did and that she adapted to her new surroundings as easily as she did. She is as comfortable at Stratford Court today as she was in her own home in Shelby. I think she had just made up her mind that this was what she needed to do and that it was in everyone's best interest. I am amazed how she never looked back! I admire and appreciate her so much for this.
Jimmy had been living with us for about a year because he moved back to Clearwater from Melbourne and wasn't really sure what his next step would be. With only 1 of 4 bedrooms occupied, we told him he could move in with us until he figured out his next step. Kids do leave the nest, but they also come home again! I haven't minded. Rather, I have felt blessed and fortunate that I have had the space for my kids to come back to. It also is a pleasant thought that they really don't MIND being back with their parents! Anyway, after a time and after Mom was settled here, Jimmy got his own place. This resulted in renting a big U-Haul and calling on the help of Tommy again! We moved Jimmy into his condo and filled it with some of the furniture we brought back from Mom's. We knew he was going to be moving out of our home soon, so we brought some things from her place in Shelby for that purpose.
Jimmy is still in that condo filled with things from Mom's house. We have on occasion hauled other things over there that came out of our house that we no longer needed.....perhaps because we replaced them with things from Mom's house in Shelby!
Did I say that my garage housed 2 households? I meant 3. Just about 2 months after Mom moved down here, Madeline moved back from living for 5 years in Philadelphia. Madeline was engaged and it seemed foolish for her to pay for her own place when we have a 4 bedroom home with only 1 bedroom occupied. Jimmy had been gone for over a month, and we were empty-nesters again!
Madeline's move required me to converse with the movers that moved Mom from Shelby to Florida. They agreed they could move Madeline from Philadelphia to Florida. So, Madeline got on the phone with them and discussed what she had that needed to be moved. She didn't have time to get rid of anything or make any decisions about her things. I remember it being a crazy time because the movers were late and Madeline had a plane to catch to come back to Florida! She had to enlist one of her friends to come and oversee the rest of the move so she could make it to the airport. Fortunately, everything worked out but once again, life was on a truck! Everything she owned and had accumulated in 5 years was on that truck!
The truck arrived, unloaded all her belongings in our garage, and voila.....3 different homes had representation in our garage! The very next day, my roommate from college and her 3 kids came for a visit. It was awesome! I hadn't seen her in many years. Life was hectic, though, and Madeline truly felt the upheaval. She was home less than 48 hours with house guests, engaged to be married and trying to figure out her employment and being back home with Mom and Dad again, and then she left for Jamaica to go on a mission trip with our church! She never really unpacked. Over the next couple of weeks, she brought in and unpacked what she needed, and the rest of the stuff stayed in the garage. Some of it is still out there!
Everyone settled in for awhile and eventually Jim and I had to go back to Shelby to deal with the rest of the stuff in Mom's home. I had been once before that to visit my friends. Sally and Carol went with me to Mom's and helped me inventory all that was left. We had thought we might arrange a tag sale to do what we needed to with the rest of it all. Well, arranging this tag sale long distance just seemed overwhelming, so that is when Jim and I decided that we needed to go back. We ended up working ourselves like crazy! We decided that we needed to move back to Florida certain things and the rest we needed to get rid of. Our goal was to empty the house. So in just a couple of days, we did just that! We spent one day assessing the situation, taking care of home repairs and tagging what would go and what would stay. Although there were several items we didn't really need nor were we sure anyone else would need, we just couldn't leave them. We arranged for the moving company to come and they agree to move every single item that was left in the house. They didn't want any surprises, so we assured them if it was left in the house, it was intended to be moved. We knew we wouldn't be around, so we had to make sure we covered all the bases.
We worked until we couldn't move. We literally crawled into our hotel room at night! We cleaned the sheds, the closets, the attic, the garage, the lawn....you name it! We called The Hospice Thrift Store to come get what we decided to donate. The charity was fairly new and it was dear to my heart. Not only do I believe in the power of the Hospice organization, my good friend, Patti McMurry, has worked for Hospice for years. I knew that the new thrift store was important to her so I chose it as our choice to donate. The volunteers who came with truck after truck were so appreciative and thankful, it did my heart good. I called Mom that night and told her that her things had made a lot of people happy! We spent all day pointing out this and that and the people from Hospice took whatever we told them to take.
After they left, Jim and I set out to pack up what was left that didn't need professional packing. We cleaned the house and knew that there wouldn't be so much as a bar of soap left when the movers came and we flew back to Florida the next day!
So, the movers arrived. We had to rent a storage unit. It was filled absolutely to the brim, and many other items got put in our garage....things we decided we might want after all. It was almost as much as the first time we had a moving truck come from Shelby! We now had a garage that not only was void of a car, but there was barely a walkway to get from the door out to the driveway! And this is not to mention that the storage unit was full.
There came a time when we realized that Jimmy could use a few more things from our garage, like a desk and a twin bed from Madeline's Philadelphia collection. Madeline was happy to give him these things. We realized how many of our family's things had been moved from place to place to place. We believe in keeping it 'all in the family!' So, we rented a truck and moved a bed, desk, mattress set, tv and a few more things of Madeline's to Jimmy's place.
Well, now we had a wedding to plan. So the mess just stayed and stayed. Finally, about 2 months before their wedding, Madeline and Eric rented a townhome. They didn't live in it, but they decided to fix it up so it would be ready for the new Mr. and Mrs. Eric Barnes. This resulted in renting a U-Haul and moving a bunch of stuff from our garage. They began setting up their new place. They also went out and bought a sofa and a few things they needed that neither of them had. That resulted in borrowing a truck from a friend.
After Mom's 2nd load came from Shelby, Madeline and Eric had decided on a few more things from her house because now that they had their own place and could visualize what would fit and what they wanted. We rented a U-Haul again......went to the storage unit to get a few things and back to our garage for some more things.
As soon as they got Mom's antique oak table in their house, they realized they had the tabletop, the legs, but not the pedestal base. This resulted on yet another trip to the storage unit and back to their townhouse!
Other truck rentals/borrows came from Madeline and Eric moving more things from his parents' garage, our garage and the storage unit. We also assessed the storage unit to see what in there might need to go into our garage for our upcoming yard sale.
After our yard sale, we took three cars loaded to the brim with leftover stuff and went straight to Goodwill to donate it.
Just this weekend, a lot of Mom's stuff was sold at an auction. It was hard for me to let go, but I realized after all these moves, my house full, Madeline's house full, the boys have what they need, Bob and Porter got some lovely art items that they wanted to remember Mom by...well, there just isn't a need or a way to hang onto everything. I felt like my life and my heritage just went by the wayside. Madeline kept reminding me that we all have something of Mom's as remembrance, Mom has all her favorite things in her apartment, not to mention that our garage (and now Madeline's old empty bedroom) is full and that we don't have need or space for anything else. I tend to hang on to the past, memories and heritage.....but my wiser than-her-years daughter tells me to view it as someone else giving life to these things and that they are making them happy. I know she is right. I said to Mom and my husband just today: "The most important things in life aren't things."
Can I hear an amen for that?!
But I do know what Ellen means....My Life Is In a Truck. I have felt like that for almost three years now. And even though there probably won't be more trucks, I still have piles of stuff to sort through, decide upon...I have a garage to clean out and an extra room to turn into a nice room and not a storage room. I go back to what sparked me to begin my blog....Sally heard my frustration 3 years ago. She told me to take pictures of Mom's things. Write a blog about them. And then do with them what I need to do with them. And move on. After all, we can't cling on to everyTHING.
But memories are made FROM these things.
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| Gail Ann...College Roomie! |
