Assisted Living

Two of them ride this dumpster. The one on top is unmistakable, but I tossed the other one earlier--you can just see the back, hung with plastic, beneath the one on top. Those chairs were his favorites, although the one on top is the one he inhabited for the last decade or so. Believe me, it had to go. 

Once upon a time he'd attached two by two blocks to each of the feet because he decided he sat too low in it comfortable clutches. It was a rocker. He could lean back, finagle the remote. tune in his radio, read a magazine--generally speaking, he could live in that chair. And he did. When you're 96, you don't want to move much if you don't have to.

But it was time for him to move to the other side of the home, the one with the ready nurse; so we moved him yesterday, although my wife has been moving him for weeks already, often clandestinely, stealing stuff he didn't even know he had while he was down the hall to lunch. Avoid the bother, the anxiety. It's simply not fun to get cleaned out the way he did.

Years ago already, he and Mom left the farm. It was a cold gray winter day, as I remember. Our kids were kids. Three John Deere tractors drew most of the crowd, as I remember, and a shop full of farm tools, as well as some household goods.  I was a kid. Most everything that happened that day I thought rather exciting. Plus, the folks were moving to town because, he told me one day in the barn, he didn't need another harvest, didn't need what it exacted from him. A cold day, but a good day.

Dad went to work for a ton of people when they left the farm, and he enjoyed life, retired and relaxed even though he never put his feet up. He worked constantly because retired farmers can do must anything, fix anything--and what they can't fix they can jerry-rig. 

When they left the house for the home, the two of them had another sale. I was older then. They'd simply given everything to the church so the auction was on the church parking lot, which I remember well, heartsick all night long. Mom's dining room table--she's protected it through the years with a thick plastic mat when we'd come for Sunday dinner!--it sold for a pocketful of nickles. Things they loved but had no room for went for a dime. I could hardly watch. She didn't. Wouldn't.

Mom died some years ago already, leaving Dad alone in the independent living apartment they'd moved into after that church sale--and yesterday we moved him to a smaller room on the other side, assisted living. He gave up his chair, that beat up blue one in the dumpster, even though he wasn't himself that easily moved. It's hard for him to get over the fact that it's a smaller room for more money. 

Here's an old winter coat he'll never wear anymore, and a coverall, like the one he wore at his own farm sale years ago. 

He won't be needing it, hasn't for years already. We'll bring it up the road to Zestos, I suppose; but the oil stains are significant and they're his. Don't know if they'll just dump it. 

If I say it hurts to toss so many things, I suppose I don't know the half of it. It's his coverall, his coat, and, just for the record, his Explorer they're lying on, an Explorer that's no longer in his garage because he began to understand himself that at 96, his vision, his hearing, and his reactions just plain aren't what they once were.

Yesterday, we moved him, an all-day job he couldn't abide not being a part of. Every time we moved the cart, old room to new one, he was there on his electronic chair, loaded up himself. He micro-managed like a mad CEO, drove us plain nuts most the day. 

But then, it was his life in our hands.

Once upon a time, everything he needed fit into this bag he carried across Europe, following the Allied front to Berlin. He was a wrench in the motor pool, fixing anything that came back from the front in need of repair. 

Once upon a time, most of what he owned fit in here. 

But it all has to go finally. That's not news--it's the stuff of every Sunday School lesson. 

But some lessons just hurt, and I'm glad it's done. Once more, I'm glad it's done.