Transitions

Just got back home from a week in San Diego (Spring Valley, to be precise) We moved my mother from independent living to assisted living.

We was myself, my two brothers, one sister-in-law, and one day; three cousins.

Mom has lived in this community since '02. She has been in independent living, with a two-bedroom, two bath apartment. Dad died in '04, and Mom has been on her own. She quit driving in '08, and gave her car to my niece.

We, (my brothers, my sister and I) had somewhat forbidden her from cooking for this last year. Three reasons: 1) her age, 2) here, she had an electric stove after 50+ years of gas; and 3) quite frankly, the stove was somewhat defective, as we determined when trying to cook things ourselves.

Cut down, cut down and delete! was the theme. Most of the furniture was already figured out. A few glitches occured. Her touch-turn lamps both failed during the move. We suspect that since they were roughly 30 years old, the only reason they were still functioning as designed was because they had not been moved in 8 years. She had sufficient other lamps.

My sister had done a crude layout for the furniture. She either over-estimated the space or under-estimated the size of the furniture. With four men present on Tuesday, we managed to re-configure.

We rented a storage space to store the pictures and decorative items my sister will arrive later this year to arrange. We rented a 5X5 space. It is not full. Because the stored items are mostly pictures and decorative items, they are mostly boxed, and my sister will have the delight of arranging them further.

We lucked out. We had called various charitable organizations about picking up un-needed items. They could not pick up while we were there. On Wednesday, I was running something between the old and new units. Saw a truck from the Rescue Mission picking up stuff. Asked them if they could stop by our place. They could, and took several large pices that we had worried about getting rid of.

Mom's next door neighbor (in independent living) has a daughter who has become a friend. Her church is having a rummage sale. She took a bunch of stuff for that.

I "scored" a tile-top table (mission style) that had belonged to Aunt Polly. In her will, I was to receive it. However, my mother got it from her before she died. Since it wasn't part of her estate, I didn't get it then. Steve and I have had a long-standing competition/joke about which of us took it. He let me have it. Steve got the silver service. I'm relieved. I don't have space to securely store it.

I got "the Rowe rock" This is a piece of black, only semi-crystaline tourmaline shot with granite that we picked up many, many years ago. I recall it as being on a truck-trail somewhere behind Lovelace damn. I could be wrong on the location. I do know that it was sometime in the early '60's, as I do remember it being loaded into the '57 Chevy wagon, which then hit bottom a couple of times on our way out of where ever we were. It is now in my front (xero-scaped) yard. As my husband noted, the New Mexico winds will NOT move it.

I took Mom's rain-guage, which is a frog with the rain-gauge tube in his mouth. It fits in my back-yard decor.

When we moved the folks out of the house in '02, it was very emotional. They had been ther for 50+ years. I was born after they moved there.

We knew that the house would be torn down, the orchard mostly razed, and four or five luxery homes built on the site. All four of us were there, and it was a major wrench.

This time, the wrench was cutting down on the memory items. I don't really mind the stuff I have bought since '02. It is the OLD stuff. I took several vases. Some of them were wedding presents in 1945. We stored the china that my grandmother painted.

Mom has moved from an apartment that was almost as big as the old house to a single room. Her memories have not shrunk. But her room for displaying them has.