Today, we started sorting the boxes moved to our new Karl and Mary Study (just eighteen months ago this was my father’s reading room) – into groups of: stationery, personal files, and personal/family history. This will become a room for books, journal and letter writing, and personal and family memories. Moving forward with a listening […]
Just in time for a Thanksgiving Day celebration with family and friends, we made a final push yesterday to clear the sunny yoga room of estate boxes I had decided were *easy* – or, the easiest emotionally of the three groups we triaged months ago in March/April (the other two groups include The Box Room […]
Karl and I hosted friends for a couple of simple suppers and one tea party over these last few days. It felt great – and grounding, to use the family china inherited from my ancestors as we remembered them and celebrated their lives in the past and present. The hospitality suggested by the ancestors’ serving […]
It was truly joyful to make some final (for now) decisions about the family dining and tea service sets I would keep (to use on occasion) in my dining room… just in time for All Hollow’s Triduum – Halloween, All Saints and All Souls days. Last Tuesday and Thursday we moved my mother’s (full), and […]
Since my mother passed away from frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) in 2008, I have referred to my family dementia-care experience as an unexpected tornado that hit my home (and it is taking years to recover from the devastation). Her death, followed by my father’s five-year decline, a marriage and a new home have me now managing […]
People say the heart of the home is the kitchen. This is the category of estate stuff we are now uncovering, sorting, grouping, and deciding on. It is three-generations plus+ worth of kitchen and dining dishes, table dressings, cooking tools… This category cuts the heart open with memories of holiday family meals, the good, the […]
“Je suis pret” is the motto of my maternal Fraser of Lovat Scottish clan. “I am ready” is certainly a good ideal to keep close to heart and mind, and for me recently begged the question, “Am I ready… for the unexpected?” Estate management has helped me to turn the focus on my own aging […]
I am beginning to realize that a significant part of my role as a writer/blogger is simply to be a witness to the long-term effects of long-term care, and to validate for myself and others in real…slow… time… my own grief process… slogging through an estate management project given my personality type (a sensitive and […]
Or, yet another example of Start Where You Are (Chödrön, P., 1994) Nearly six years after our move to this home in Topsfield, MA (February 17, 2009), and the traumas of losing both parents, now water under the bridge… continually falling ever-so-softly down a rocky edge to a deep pool below… I’m noticing moss and […]
Nine weeks later, I’m thrilled to witness a transformation of my once named paper layers- now, a highly ordered and efficient filing system at my home office that reflects four years of my survivor’s mission work at the kitchen table (writing) and in the world (speaking, teaching workshops, and leading retreats). Here begins a strong […]
