One year ago

One year ago today I woke up in the guest room of my parents' home.  My cousin had picked me up at the airport the night before and was in a room down the hall.  

We started in on what seemed like a completely impossible task. Where to start? What to do? What to prioritize? Things were still "as is" from when Mom was living there before her July 2023 fall & subsequent move to assisted living. 

Throughout the week, I had appointments with an accountant, an antique dealer, a potential buyer for the house, the funeral home.  I was trying to get my ducks in a row, but still not sure what to do. But we prayed, others prayed, we put one foot in front of the other, did the next thing, and slowly but surely, the Lord gave clarity. 

On my way home from meeting the funeral home man at Mom's assisted living, I took a load of trash to the dump and a load of donations to the thrift store.  The weight of it all really hit me.  And I was an emotional mess. 

There was a nightmarish encounter in there, too, with some people trying to take advantage of the property & items in the barn.

My dad's second cousin and his wife came from a couple hours away and helped sort through historical documents in the parlor. (It was their last time in the house ... Sigh!)

Some of my cousins' sons drove up from South Carolina to see Mom, walk around the farm, and say "good-bye" to the house. 

And on Saturday, my cousin dropped me off at the airport. I was tired. I knew our family would return in five weeks. And when Jim walked in, he couldn't tell we had done anything. Sigh.  (We had made progress, but we had barely made a dent in it.)

During our July/August weeklong visit, Jim and the children (and others) worked hard outside, emptying the outbuildings, and inside, emptying all the photo albums. I had more appointments (and most notably signed the contract for the farm auction). I literally scurried around the house all day each day, taking items off the walls, emptying drawers, etc.  We were exhausted!  We considered staying an extra day to get more done, but didn't.  We were too tired to be effective. And in fact, my body said, "No," on our last day there. I visited Mom that day. And I rested. I was spent. 

The October trip when I flew back and met my cousin there again was the one where we saw the most progress.  I had appointments. We had helpers.  Many people prayed.  And at the end of the week, everything the family wanted was out of the house. Only the items to be sold in the private estate sale were visible.  Things from the last 50 years (to be picked up at the end by a local auction house) filled a deep & tall closet.  And we had filled one outbuilding with trash.  The house looked staged.  (And all rooms had been cleaned.) Again, we were exhausted!

Six days before Thanksgiving, the house was virtually empty, and a dumpster was delivered.  By that evening, three family members had it 3/4 full (with items from the attic, the cellar, and the trash stored in the outbuilding).  The next day, as we drove 600 miles to Tennessee, we kept getting updates, as more family members arrived from out-of-state to help.  By evening, they had the contents of the attic staged downstairs and ready for another dumpster.  And by the time we left on Tuesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, the attic was empty & swept, three dumpsters had been filled, every floor in the house was mopped (twice!), and the only items remaining were the modem & router & alarm system.

If you've ever wondered how long it takes to empty a house of 124 years' worth of contents, it takes 22 weeks (if you live 600 miles away & have lots of helpers & lots of pray-ers).