By Lora Felger
We’ve all been there in one capacity or another. The hall closets that cave in on you every time you open the door. The garage that won’t hold a car anymore because it houses so many “treasures.” Your family home that holds every memory of your life from birth that needs to be sold because Mom and Dad are ready for a smaller footprint and less yard to take care of.
The physical act of downsizing is a reality we all must face eventually. The roll up your sleeves; get all hot and sweaty; and keep, donate or toss decision-making of life. It really is hard work, and your muscles probably ache a bit afterward. Have you ever considered the psychological toll this process might be taking on you or your loved ones as well?
I have a lot of recent personal experience in the whole “downsize and declutter” world after a series of personal moves and after moving my dad to North Carolina shortly after the death of my mother. My experience has taught me that the act of downsizing is a grief process all on its own, and the reasons why our elders want to keep certain things and yet are willing to part with other things don’t have to make sense to anyone but them.
After the moving van had unloaded the boxes and my dad and I started decorating his new much-smaller home here in North Carolina, I was confused sometimes by the decisions he made on what he was willing to part with before leaving Illinois.
He also had very strong ideas on what got hung on the empty walls. So many of the things hung on his walls were my mom’s choice and not his. I was patient and kept reminding him that this was his house to do as he wanted and that it could be an exciting thing for him, but time and again he would say, “Your mother wanted this to go here.” I quickly realized that this was his way of mourning and honoring my mom and I needed to respect his need to keep her story and memory alive in his new environment.
Downsizing and decluttering are a grief process even if the death happened a long time ago or there was no death at all. Recognizing it as grief is an important part of the puzzle.
Grief explains why I insist on keeping my tin/metal TV tray from the 1970s that was my “sick tray” when I was a kid. My couch and bedroom furniture? Tossed them in the dumpster, and I didn’t look back. That tray? Wrapped in bubble wrap and carefully moved between three states now. This ‘70s-style floral-printed TV tray means comfort and home to me. That old gray couch? It meant nothing, and to the dumpster it went. That was my choice, and no one could change my mind. I had to get a bit cranky with my impatient children who couldn’t understand why the tray made the U-Haul instead of the dumpster. For me, this was personal, and it didn’t need to make sense to them.
Do you have a major move in your future? Will it require parting with the things we collect in life? My best advice to you, if you know it will be an emotional experience, is to hire good people to help you through it.
There are wonderful senior relocation experts in our area that understand the thinking and the grief that you and your loved ones will go through as you fill the boxes and load the moving van. As a Community Outreach expert in North Carolina, I’m happy to recommend some very special and professional people that I’ve seen in action and would trust for my next big move. Let these experts play “devil’s advocate,” serve as a mediator and, most importantly, understand and respect why things matter to you on a deeply personal level.
Lora Felger is a Community Outreach/Medicare Advisor with FirstCarolinaCare. She is the mother of two terrific boys, a world traveler and a major Iowa State Cyclones fan. She also has a naughty yet lovable Yellow Labrador Retriever named Harvey.
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