Facing Reality
Thursday, June 4th radio program.
Dear Dr. Laura - Recently, just as I turned on SiriusXM and began listening to you while preparing to clean out a bedroom for my husband’s upcoming home dialysis setup, you were taking a call. The woman who called had lost her son several years earlier. She was planning to move and was concerned about taking all of her son’s belongings with her in order to create a designated room for them in her new home. You so kindly explained to her, in so many words, that it was time to let go of all that stuff.
For the past couple of decades, it has become an increasing weight on me to hold onto my dear aunt’s and uncle’s many albums and other memorabilia dating back to the 1940s. They had no children, and after they passed away, their belongings found homes in mine and my sister’s houses because we had been so very close to them.
The same thing happened after I lost my mother many years ago. My sister became the custodian of all the family photographs and albums dating back to when she and my father met just before World War II. My father died when I was 12, in 1961.
Four years ago, my sister passed away. Having had no children, all of the family memorabilia she had cared for, along with everything accumulated throughout her 74 years, came to live at my house.
It has been an exhausting responsibility for me. I am deeply attached to every scrap of paper in my care, and I have only been able to part with a minimal amount of this ever-growing collection. My husband, who is 83, has been dealing with chronic kidney disease for several years and has now reached the point where he must begin dialysis. We are planning for him to do peritoneal dialysis rather than hemodialysis so we can maintain better control over our lives and activities. I am 76 and healthy.
When I heard your call begin, I suddenly felt that you were going to help me deal with this looming task. I have one daughter who is 49 and has no children. I know she would not want me to leave all of this for her to sort through after I am gone. So much of it would be meaningless to her.
After your call, I walked into the bedroom we are converting into my husband’s dialysis room with a completely different attitude. You helped lift a tremendous weight of responsibility from my shoulders and gave me permission to move forward instead of remaining tied to the past.
I managed to fill two bags and drag them out of the house. Of course, I will save some photos and important life documents for my daughter, but I can now be more objective. It will still take many tears to accomplish this task and to face the near future of dialysis for my husband, but I know that by removing many layers of belongings that no one but me is left to mourn, and by making the room and house feel refreshed, it will go a long way toward helping my husband and me handle the present.
Dr. Laura, I have listened to you for decades and have grown through your advice after having a very socially smothering upbringing with a mother who became a Seventh-day Adventist when I was four and later became an extremely devoted follower after my father died. (He was supportive of her joining the church but did not attend himself.)
Thank you so much. As I said, I am 76, but I so often still feel like that 12-year-old girl whose father died.
Sincerely,
A Listener
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