My hair was still wet from a quick shower. I rushed out with a leaf blower to clear the driveway of its latest layer of leaves and acorns. As I methodically moved the blower back and forth like an elephant swinging its trunk, the first car pulled up discretely along the side of the road. I continued blowing as more cars appeared and parked.

Help was here! A truck pulled into the drive behind my sister’s car. It was full of folding tables, flattened boxes and bags of packing materials. The team emerged from their vehicles, one by one, wearing company T-shirts and name-tags, carrying their tools and aprons and lunch bags.

Months of stress melted off of me as I greeted the team and announced I wanted to hug each of them. I joked that the neighbors will think Mama died and if anyone shows up with a casserole just take it and say “Thank you.”

My sister did text some neighbors to alert them that a liquidation company was coming to help us. Neighbors here get excited when too many cars are at one house. This is an old neighborhood. The folks who started it and the surrounding churches are now in their eighties and nineties. Many children and grandchildren have moved into the homes of their aging kin as the elderly family members are moved out to a nursing home or die.

It was a great place to grow up. My sister and I will miss the community, but selling the house is a necessity. There are bills to pay. Taking excellent care of a dementia patient is rather expensive. We have two private helpers, Debbie and Monique, who stay with Mama during her active hours. They text us photos and updates so we will not worry about her. This support is worth every penny. They are like family.

If you know Mama, you know she insists on having things her way. She still thinks she is in charge of the world, even from her wheelchair. The dementia has taken away her reasoning ability. My sister and I would like to tell her what we are doing, but she would be horrified to think her home was being dismembered and sold. We are struggling with it ourselves.

If you are a follower, you know that we have spent months carefully going over each item and paper. We have spent hours washing glass, polishing metals, sorting and grouping things and throwing things away. It has been like watching another horribly necessary death.

There will be relief when it is over, but also great sadness. We will have a huge void where our home, our haven, used to be in our lives. Daddy is everywhere there, his shop, his garden building, his garden plot with its perfect soil from years of cultivation. Where will he be when home is gone?

The team from Caring Transitions of Lake Norman has handled our parents’ belongings with care and respect. That means a lot to us. This is how it should be.

The on-line auction will be next week. We hope the people who buy the things will use them and love them. That’s what matters to us.

FLOW

One of the mysteries found at Mama’s house was this old, blue music box. It was on Daddy’s side of their closet. Mama does not remember it, but dementia has erased things.

It is a swiss music box by Thorens.

It has a well-worn cover. It is small like for a male or for travel.

The music is lovely. I have played its tune over and over.

Its lovely notes have been soothing to me.

Becca

There is a hypertufa pot under this creeping fig tangle.

The Blue Spruce sedum cannot get what it needs to thrive because it has been covered over by an agressive plant.

Entangled, smothered and trapped. Over-taken by a bigger, stronger bully.

It will take some work to break this pot free, but it can be done… It must be done.

We all have a right to sunshine and rain, no matter how small or weak.

FLOW

It is time to start moving things out of mama’s house. It must be cleared and painted then sold.

My sister and I are struggling with this reality as we march toward the inevitable.

I have sorted, packed and polished.

Now it is time to wash the glass. Not fancy, expensive crystal, just lovely little objects of glass.

I am washing these by hand like my mother and grandmothers and great grandmothers did. Standing over a hot sink, hands pruned by the dish water, looking out the window.

Remembering the desserts that were in these bowls and stemmed cups… the colors of jello, the 1-2-3, the pudding and blueberry desert.

We loved the sweet and sparkle at the end of a family meal.

I will keep a set of these for making special little deserts for the children in the family just like they did.

I am honoring my past by washing glass with warm soapy water and tears.

It is time to move things here at mama’s.

FLOW