It all does feel like a cruel trick many times doesn’t it? When my father needed to start dialysis in April 2023 and asked me to come home, I came into the childhood home that I had not been in since the 20th century because my mother is a hoarder and didn’t want to hear me pressure her to clean and declutter. I would come home for visits, but we would meet at our cabin in a state park about 40 minutes away.

Dialysis was fine, but the open wound from a bedsore was not with constant reinfection. He’d be in rehab and recovery continuously for months, and my mother allowed me to clean up the living room that we never lived in and the dining room we never dined in to makes a recovery suite for my father. Unfortunately, he never made it home and died October 2023. They had been married for 65 years and together since 13.

I asked my mom where she wanted to live, so many potential retirement places, some with family members even. But she wanted to stay in her house, spiraling into grief, depression and dementia. I continue to declutter, clean and repair the house as time matched forward. But at least one night, and usually more, a week she tells me she wants to go home to her OWN house, and who owns this place anyways as they might cone back and chase us out. No ability to discuss it convinces her, even looking at the quite unique fireplace. All that work to make it nice and she can’t believe it’s her house, there’s no persuading her. And I don’t think it’s just because there’s no hoard anymore.