![]() Maybe you can relate to this story? Yesterday, when taking winter clothes up to the attic, I noticed two boxes I packed over 20 years ago after graduate school. But then, after my father-in-law died and we inherited much more than a few boxes, including almost all the furniture from the barbershop he ran on Castle Street in Wilmington for over forty years, I started to feel weighed down. I used to just tape these boxes back up and carry them to the attic. ![]() When I open my boxes, I find things like my first baby doll, my first writing samples, a funny hat from a Yugoslavian exchange student, and old postcards from camp. They breathe a sigh of relief with each box deposited in the foyer of my or my brother Erik’s house. My parents, in their mid-seventies, are doing it by filling their station wagon with large labeled boxes each time they come visit. And now, in rehab and uncertain whether she will ever walk again, she regrets she had not done it earlier or, at least, asked for help. The week before, I had another client, in her early nineties and still living independently, who broke her hip while trying to clean out her house. ![]() ![]() The article caught my eye because just yesterday I was talking with a client whose declining mother, who really needs to move to Assisted Living for safety reasons, continues to resist by saying, “But first I need to clean out the house.” ![]()
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