I woke up smelling bacon that my stepfather's best friend and wife had prepared for he and I. I slowly realized I had just slept at least five hours straight in an actual bed. That's a new one. I usually sleep for only two hours at a time.
After thinking about it, it wasn't too surprising since my eighty-three-year-old stepfather, Rudy, and I had spent the last three days packing his and my mother's hoarding house. Rudy and I were ready to drive to Texas with our newly packed, fifteen foot, U-Haul truck. We would pick up my mother's death certificate on our way out of town.
My mother had passed away from cancer a few weeks prior on March 25th, 2022. My half sister and brother had already been there and had been able to say goodbye to her before she was gone. That was the best thing for them. Since I had already said my goodbyes to my mother three weeks prior, it worked out perfectly for me to show up the day after her passing and give them time together.
My husband and I drove up the next day where I found Rudy taking Mom's clothing off of their hangers and stuffing them into large black bags. "We'll take these to a donation center," I could tell he was quite ready to be done with all the hoarding!
Thank you! I thought. There was so much stuff. My sister had cleaned some of the living room area by the time my husband and I arrived so we could at least have somewhere to narrowly walk. Every other room of the house was quite literally knee deep in a lifetime’s accumulation of "stuff!" She thought it would make her happy.
My brother took my sister to the airport that afternoon, so I only got to see them for a couple of hours. That was enough time to begin the discussion of what had been done so far and what still needed to be done now that Mom was gone, like finding a realtor to sell the house. Neither my brother nor my sister had the space to re-home my stepfather, so it became my pleasure to bring him home with me, just not yet. We still had work to do.
Richard, my husband, and I proceeded to spend the next four days packing, organizing, and cleaning non-stop so we could sell the house.
There was evidence of rat infestations in every closet, under every shelf and cabinet, and in almost every corner. Most of the furniture’s fabric was chewed through and many sofas and chairs had been used as homes for the creatures. Many of the unending piles of magazines were also chewed up and used as bedding. The entire house smelled like a rodent toilet.
I had to leave after four days because I had to get a grip on the depth to which my parents’ living situation had sunk. I used the excuse that I had to get back to work and so I left Rudy to fend for himself for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, he found a realtor, packed up the books he wanted to take (he had seven bookshelves of them), and generally tried to clean.
Almost two weeks later my husband and I had figured out our plan for bringing my stepfather home to live with us. I would fly out on Easter Sunday, pack up any remaining items, rent a fifteen foot U-Haul truck, and Rudy and I would drive to Texas from his North Carolina home.
Upon arriving Easter Day, the house didn’t look much different from when I had left three weeks before. Upon closer examination I saw a few more details of how much my stepfather had actually done like sorting through his seven bookshelves, pulling out stuff from many kitchen cabinets and finding a few boxes of items he actually did want to keep for himself.
There was still too much to finish and drive away in two days time so we allowed for an extra day of sorting and packing before we had people come help move furniture into the moving truck. Once packed, having expended an enormous amount of energy, we had been invited to stay the night with Rudy's best friend and wife in their clean home.
I felt like a queen having a shower, eating a home cooked meal and sleeping in a real bed.
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