By Barbara Morris
Several weeks before the holidays I busied myself with helping one of our friends move from her home to a much smaller place. Downsizing is not always easy. She and her husband, daughter and son had moved to Laurelton many years ago. They were always good neighbors, a multi-talented family.
Bernie, the husband, and Joanne, the daughter, enjoyed careers as professional artists. Joanne teaches art in public school. Unfortunately, Bernie died many years ago, leaving some lovely watercolors to remind family and friends how sensitive he was to the beauty and frailty of nature. Michael, the electrical engineer son, was into music, and Joanne married and moved away many years ago.
Michael went to California with some friends and liked it there so much that he too decided to move. Like so many wives and mothers whose mates have died and whose children have “flown the nest,” Ruth had to employ her many talents to keep up a home for herself that had once served her whole family.
Sometimes that was very much a challenge for a petite woman who long ago discovered she had cancer and wisely sought to control it early on. She never complained. Early some summer mornings she could be seen mowing her lawn, and in the winter she was out shoveling snow. The times in between, she painted the inside of her neat home when she wanted to see a change here and there. She amazed us with the size and number of tomatoes she could produce from one plant, and she allowed herself some quiet time by reading on a very regular basis.
Ruth made a point to me one evening when I was helping her get ready to move. She said, “A lot of people accumulate books that they want to read and then busy themselves so much that they never get around to doing that.” Ouch! My shelves are full of things like that, and how I would love to have the necessary time to do that. Maybe this year.
Late in the summer, Ruth asked if I could find someone to cut her lawn. That was easy. She then told me she really liked living here and had hoped to be able to stay, but she felt maintaining the house was becoming too much for her. Besides that, the “apple of her eye,” her grandson, Joshua, was growing into manhood very quickly and she wanted to have an opportunity to be nearer to him before he too would grow and leave.
She finally decided to sell her home and move closer to her daughter. Luckily, Ruth’s sister also lives relatively near Joanne so that was part of the decision to make the change. The house was sold quickly. Just as fast, an apartment with all new appliances became hers. It was just two blocks from Joanne’s. She knew she had made the right decision.
The only problem was that she had a house full of lovely furniture and an apartment that could only accommodate a small percentage of it. There was only time for word-of-mouth attempts to sell the remainder. I bought a few things, including the beautiful, frost-free refrigerator Joanne had given her in 2002, and a couple of other people bought minor things.
The main pieces, including a like-new beautiful dining room set with a breakfront and a china and crystal set, couch, living room chairs, dinette set and two bedrooms full of furniture, still needed a new home or they would have to be removed at a large cost. Prospective buyers sometimes begged to have things held and then never returned. Some promised to come and then did not, and a few others came and found that the items were not exactly what they wanted.
The result was that Ruth moved just before the holidays, and the furniture stayed. I volunteered to try to have the remainder removed as inexpensively as possible. Ruth had been told that the Salvation Army would not take furniture anymore, but that is not true. It no longer takes furniture in need of repairs, but it does — and did — take most of the remainder of her fixtures because they were in ready-for-sale condition.
Ruth is a very generous woman and was glad, as I was, to know that the Salvation Army, which is known for its charitable works, will benefit from her donations and some family will possibly have as many happy memories with that furniture as Ruth has had. Happy New Year.
