My Mother’s Possessions Will Kill Her
by Diane Lynne Gorgy
At 12:30 am, my brother got a call from my mother’s medic alert company that she had pressed the button, but when they called, no one answered. My brother immediately drove over to her home and found her sitting on the shower floor, unable to get up. Fortunately, she was not hurt, despite that fact that she is almost 91. That fall in the shower was our wake-up call telling us that a change in her living arrangements had to be made.
My mom has been living alone in a house on a very large, private, wooded lot for the last 10 years. This is by her own choosing, and not our preference. She is unable to take care of the property or clean the house. She doesn’t drive, doesn’t know how to use a computer, just recently learned how to use her cell phone. My brother and sister-in-law, who live a few miles away, are over her house daily. They take her to her doctors’ appointments. Maintain the house and property. Do her banking. Do her grocery shopping. Do her laundry.
After her fall, my brother and I researched options for my mom to ensure she had 24-hour supervision. We looked at a live-in, but the house would require significant modifications, and my mother keeps odd hours (hence her showering at midnight). We also looked at assisted living; and visited a lovely facility a few miles away from her current house that would allow her to keep her current doctors and my brother and family could visit her on a frequent basis.
My mom was not just resistant to changes in her living situation; she was downright hostile. In hopes of winning her over, my brother took her to tour the facility. My mom would have her own private, one bedroom apartment. There were incredible amenities that she would enjoy, including a full-service beauty salon, outdoor garden patios, a dining room that was more like a bistro restaurant, social activities, Sunday mass. Despite my brother’s best efforts, she still said “no.”
We thought that she was upset about losing her independence, but, as it turned out, that was not the reason. She didn’t want to leave her possessions behind — her clothes, her shoes, her furniture, her collectibles, her china, her cookware, the bird bath and lawn decorations, the wrought iron patio set — all the things she had collected over the last 70 years.
My mom was born during the Great Depression, so I am sure this contributed largely to her inability to let go of possessions. A surprise to me, however, was that my mother attached extreme sentimental value to everything she was given or inherited. She recently handed me a beat-up silver teaspoon that I gave her as a gift when I was in college. I had forgotten all about it, but she remembered when I gave it to her and why (I didn’t have a lot of money to buy a gift, found it in an antique store and bought it because it was pure silver). Over the years, she gave me back small items that I had given her as gifts (examples: a purse-sized makeup mirror, a manicure kit, a ceramic ring holder). I never really wondered why she had these trivial items after all those years. Nor did I consider the magnitude of her keeping all the gifts given to her, regardless of their usefulness.
Now, the weight of all those possessions and the value she places on them, have created a situation where my mother will be living in an unsuitable environment because of her inability to let go. My brother and I will do everything possible to accommodate her and make it as safe as possible. However, one day, we expect to get a call from the medic alert company and find that she was not as lucky as she was after her first fall in the shower.