“Helen, what do you want to do with the margarine containers?”
“I keep them to put leftovers into” she replied.
As I stood in the basement of this two storey, five bedroom house I gazed at the first of many challenges that day. This was the second move my in-laws would be doing since the one that took them from the small town fishing village off the rugged coast of Vancouver Island where they made their lives and raised their family. It would be a daunting task.
You see, they had moved from a small 2.5 bedroom house with 1 bathroom into a 5 bedroom 2 bath house to be closer to medical and other services. The long and winding wilderness road that connected the two communities had become too much for them as they got older. Doctor appointments and major retailers were over an hour away and it was a good move for them at the time.
The choice of home had become too much to maintain and they had come to the decision to move to a much smaller 2 bedroom mobile.
Gazing at the stacks of margarine containers totalling at least 150...I thought to myself, this will be the first of many times I call out to Helen and discuss the fate of her possessions. You see she suffered from macular degeneration, a disease that affects the centre of vision only allowing the person to see things in their peripheral. She was counting on her family to help a great deal with this process.
I called back to Helen “how many do you think you will need for leftovers?”
“Oh maybe 5 or 6” she replied. I breathed a sigh of relief. I could now recycle the remaining 145 and now have to worry about packing. I confess, I did not tell her how many she had managed to stockpile. Some things are best left unsaid all in the name of harmony.
This puts things into perspective, especially from the outside looking in. As we go about our everyday lives, we tend to collect objects. In some cases we have no idea why we do it, just that we always have, or did not want to waste it, or my favourite, “just in case”
We are all guilty of it and several years later, I found myself going through the same process in my home, but more of that later.
As the day progressed the same questions were asked only about different items. It was a long exhausting day, but in the end everything found a place. Some things went to charity, others were sold and some were passed on to family as keepsakes.
Ok, margarine containers “CHECK”. Now onto the empty mason jars and wine bottles.
“I keep them to put leftovers into” she replied.
As I stood in the basement of this two storey, five bedroom house I gazed at the first of many challenges that day. This was the second move my in-laws would be doing since the one that took them from the small town fishing village off the rugged coast of Vancouver Island where they made their lives and raised their family. It would be a daunting task.
You see, they had moved from a small 2.5 bedroom house with 1 bathroom into a 5 bedroom 2 bath house to be closer to medical and other services. The long and winding wilderness road that connected the two communities had become too much for them as they got older. Doctor appointments and major retailers were over an hour away and it was a good move for them at the time.
The choice of home had become too much to maintain and they had come to the decision to move to a much smaller 2 bedroom mobile.
Gazing at the stacks of margarine containers totalling at least 150...I thought to myself, this will be the first of many times I call out to Helen and discuss the fate of her possessions. You see she suffered from macular degeneration, a disease that affects the centre of vision only allowing the person to see things in their peripheral. She was counting on her family to help a great deal with this process.
I called back to Helen “how many do you think you will need for leftovers?”
“Oh maybe 5 or 6” she replied. I breathed a sigh of relief. I could now recycle the remaining 145 and now have to worry about packing. I confess, I did not tell her how many she had managed to stockpile. Some things are best left unsaid all in the name of harmony.
This puts things into perspective, especially from the outside looking in. As we go about our everyday lives, we tend to collect objects. In some cases we have no idea why we do it, just that we always have, or did not want to waste it, or my favourite, “just in case”
We are all guilty of it and several years later, I found myself going through the same process in my home, but more of that later.
As the day progressed the same questions were asked only about different items. It was a long exhausting day, but in the end everything found a place. Some things went to charity, others were sold and some were passed on to family as keepsakes.
Ok, margarine containers “CHECK”. Now onto the empty mason jars and wine bottles.