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PATIENCE, PLANNING AND SUPPORT: REFLECTIONS ON DEALING WITH AGING FAMILY MEMBERS
cancer. His local hospital did not want to operate as they told us he would not survive the surgery. They sent him to a nursing home to die. We talked about it, and he decided he would like to go to the Mayo Clinic for a second opinion, which we did. We spent about ten minutes with the Mayo surgeon. After the surgeon explained the surgery, he asked if we had any questions. I said I did. “Do you think he’ll survive?” The surgeon quickly said, “I wouldn’t do the surgery if I didn’t think he’d survive. He’ll survive.” It was a rough recovery followed by four months in a rehab unit, but he survived. He survived four more years. He never went back to his house. He moved to an independent living facility and died of an unrelated cause in 2019.
Sadly, the first rehab facility I took him to provided sub-par care after the colon cancer surgery. They wanted to transfer him to hospice, and I told them to call an ambulance instead. They were insistent on hospice. I said if they
did not call the ambulance, I would. When he arrived at the hospital, he was dehydrated and malnourished. The emergency room doctor was very upset, and I quickly said, “he’s coming from a licensed facility.” Needless to say, when he got out of the hospital, he did not go back to that facility. Before his hospitalization, I called Shalom Home in St.
Paul to inquire about transferring him there. Once he was discharged from the hospital, he went directly to Shalom Home, receiving excellent care. Medicare paid a total of 3 months of his rehab stay. At the end of the three months, we did not feel he was quite ready to go home. We paid for an extra month at Shalom Home so that he could get strong enough to go home. He had surgery at Mayo in July 2015. He went back to South Dakota for Thanksgiving 2015. He moved into a residential living facility run by a lovely couple. He stayed there until his final illness in August 2019.
6. “Your memories are in your heart,” or in other words, “Your kids don’t want
your stuff”
My mother was a bit of a collector and had beautiful things. She had a lot of china, crystal, collector plates, and anything
else you could imagine. My parents had a 1950 rambler with a full basement. In 2007, their town suffered a severe flood. I kept calling them, asking if they were ok. They were just fine, they reassured me. I asked them if I should come to help them. No, they were just fine, they said. I
got a call from a woman from the local Methodist Church who told me that the South Dakota Methodist Bishop had directed the Methodist Church to help my parents clean up from their flood. What? My mother and father belonged to different faith traditions – neither of which was Methodist. How did the Methodist Bishop get involved? Needless to say. I quickly got on a plane and discovered what was going on.
Their basement was flooded. Helpers had moved many of their possessions from the basement to their garage, which was packed. The floodwaters had receded, but many items were still in the basement. The basement needed to be cleaned and bleached to avoid mold.
I was going through a box of my mother’s flooded things
in the basement with the Methodist Minister and started
to cry. I will never forget her words. She said to me, “your memories are in your heart.” She was right about that. With a lot of help, I got the basement cleaned out after the 2007 flood, but many of my mother’s possessions were still in the house. After my dad suddenly left his home in 2015 due to his colon cancer diagnosis, I couldn’t deal with all
of the possessions, even on one floor of the house. I kept thinking I would clean it out. But their home was 275 miles away from mine. When I would visit, I would walk around the house, maybe take a few things, and lock the door. I didn’t know what to do with all of my mother’s things. I had this feeling that I had to go through it all. What if there was something I wanted?
We’ve all probably seen the articles titled with various variations on the theme “Your Kids Don’t Want Your Stuff.” “Time to Face Reality: Your Kids Don’t Want Your Stuff!” (Kiplinger, March 29, 2021). This is true. Your kids don’t want your stuff.
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