The Empty House

 

The Empty House

By Bill Barksdale, Columnist

Recently I was asked to go to the house of an old friend to make sure it was secured and locked up.  My friend is still alive but lost in the confused fog of dementia.  I’ve known her for well over thirty years.  She lived in this house, alone, for several years as the dementia devoured more of her mind with only the visits of a dedicated In-Home-Support caregiver.  This sainted caregiver visited every day, seven days a week, to check on her charge.  Most of those visits were unpaid.  The caregiver simply – what? – cared.  

About a month ago my beloved friend was moved to a memory care facility after several years of us trying to find some kind of help for her.  Her daughter had died a couple of years ago, but she no longer remembered that.  She no longer remembered old friends or even the dedicated caregiver who visited her every day.  She still enjoyed music.  That seems to be one of the last things to go.  We know from studies that even for people in the depths of dementia and disability, music still stimulates the brain and touches forgotten memories bringing comfort and a kind of peace in those few precious moments.

My friend’s house has been empty for a month or so ever since she was rushed to the hospital after a fall.  It was clear that she could not be returned to her home to live alone, lost and confused.  Our current health care system in the U.S. blindly lets people like this - elderly, ill, disabled – fall through the cracks of a cold, broken bureaucracy to fend for themselves even when they have no coping skills left.

As I brought in the piled-up stack of damp mail and walked through a house I had once laughed in, shared meals in, chatted with my friend in – I was struck by how empty a place can be when it’s no longer cared for.  The beautiful things; books, art painted by an old lover, the untouched piano, a disheveled pile of video cassettes, that ever present ash tray – were all covered with dust. 

The furniture was familiar but in need of a deep cleaning and someone to sit in those chairs and write at that desk, eat at that table.  The stairs were white with grime except where someone had stepped repeatedly until a month ago, the railings ragged with cobwebs.  Upstairs a picture of laughing friends was laying on its back where it had carelessly fallen.  I picked it up and studied each of the laughing faces of the four women, all known to me.  All of them much younger when that picture was taken.  I lovingly stood it up and set it down properly, even though no one would be looking at it.

Almost every room has bookshelves crowded with the interests and passions of a lifetime, art, theater, writing, philosophy.  Neatly stacked are well-used reference books wanting to be opened again by the inquiring hands of their owner who had at one time been a talented writer.  My own spouse had written a book with her many years ago at that now disheveled dining room table. A woman of so many gifts and talents had once lived here, only weeks ago.  Of course those gifts are long muffled by a brain dissolving by a cruel disease we don’t understand. 

I suppose most of us have homes filled with memories like this.  The pictures on my own walls, the tchotchkes that clutter my own tables and shelves will someday be packed in boxes and shipped off to unfamiliar homes, perhaps even a dumpster.  Such is the fate of the accumulation of a lifetime.  Their only kinship being the memories of the one who gathered them together.  In new homes they will combine with different effects and collections, and new stories of times past. 

That picture of me in front of the Eiffel Tower, that snap of us on the roof of our San Francisco house with our beloved dog, Kuma, taken forty years ago will be tossed carelessly and unrecognized into the garbage.  Even the picture of my dear friend with her bright red lipstick and laughing smile will be tossed into the junk heap of lives that were here for a while and have now passed on.  I’m reminded that, as the saying goes “Life is a journey, not a destination.”  Hopefully the journey was mostly a good one.

Yes, even though my friend’s house - home - is full of stuff, it’s empty now.  Her memory that weaved it all together is gone.

Out With the Old

 

Out With the Old

By Bill Barksdale, Columnist

As humans we create symbolic milestones for ourselves.  The beginning of the new year is one of the most universal.  It’s an opportunity each year to begin again in some respects.  There’s a tradition that we make “resolutions”, positive goals for personal change.

I just finished reading a book that I picked up at our local book store, The Book Juggler.  Greta Kanne recommended it to me.  It has the, at first, off-putting title of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter.  My mother, who will be 100 this year, is Swedish and was always an obsessive house cleaner.  Maybe that’s cultural.  The author, Margareta Magnusson, dedicated the book “To my five children”.  Now I know why.  My sister and I had to sort through our mother’s house when she and her husband moved into a small apartment.

The first chapter is called Death Cleaning is Not Sad.  In fact, this book is a joy to read and a perfect way to begin a new year.  Much like my own mother, Mrs. Magnusson is a pragmatic gal who describes herself as “between 80 and 100”.  She says her delightful book is about how to “remove unnecessary things and make your home nice and orderly when you think the time is coming closer for you to leave the planet.”  The message is to not leave the accumulation of a lifetime for someone else to clean up.

The added benefit is that while you are living, you also make your own life easier.  After all, “stuff” needs to be cleaned, dusted, vacuumed, repaired, stored (which often costs money), and moved.  In this society we are referred to as “consumers” by government and business.  That’s something unsettling to think about.  It’s almost unpatriotic not buy more stuff.  I bought a lot of exotic cookware some years ago after watching the initial episodes of The Great British Bake Off on TV.  As my collection grew and took over our kitchen, most of it unused, that stuff went to the Senior Thrift Shop still in the original packaging.

I sometimes think fondly of the tiny 20’ x 13’ cabin we lived in many years ago.  It had a second story accessed by a ladder, which served as the bedroom, office and closet.  Our agile MacNab dog could go up and down the ladder.  When he got too old for that a stairway was built for him.  It never occurred to us to build stairs for ourselves.  Our lives were simple then.  There wasn’t room for a lot of clutter, just the necessities. 

Now, many years later, we live in a larger house.  Comfortable, but in need of a good “death cleaning”.  If for no other reason than to make life simpler and get all those unused things into the hands of others who can use them.  When I think of it as “passing them along”, it’s easier to let go. 

Mrs. Magnusson said she starts her decluttering with clothes.  As I went through my closets and drawers I realized there were garments I will never fit into again. There are more “collections” to tackle.  I have a friend who started in her kitchen, getting rid of old spices and cookware.  Margaretta took a year to methodically downsize her large family home room by room after the death of her husband in order to move into a comfortable and affordable two-room apartment. 

Part of death cleaning is organizing the things you find essential so you can find them when you need them.  As I am going through my stuff, I’m finding many duplicates.  What a waste of money.  Sometimes you find that collections can be reduced to one or two items.  The rest, and often all of it, can go.  Many a time collections of pictures include duplicates.  Keep one and dump the rest.  A shredder can become a best friend when sorting and downsizing.  Almost no one needs old bills, invoices or boxes of tax returns that are over three years old.  Shred it! 

There’s an old song that goes “'Tis the gift to be simple, ‘Tis the gift to be free.”  The Desiderata begins “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.”  Both good advice in these challenging times.  One of the gifts of Covid is it’s giving us the opportunity to reevaluate our lives and how we live.  Take a deep breath and let go.  ‘Tis the gift.