The End of a Holiday Era

When her mother moved to assisted living, Amanda Lauer was surprised to find many family members to take treasured Christmas decorations for their homes.

I always thought that when our children flew the nest and I neared my retirement years, my family commitments would decrease. As of October, all of our children are now married, we’re the proud grandparents of eight adorable grandchildren, and my mom and dad each live within two miles of our house. Rather than decreasing, my family commitments have been steadily increasing.

It truly is a blessing that I have the flexibility, time and resources to be there for our children, grandchildren, and my parents. But there are moments when I seem to be getting pulled in every direction. Case in point is the amount of time I’ve devoted to my mom this fall.

When she had emergency surgery in 2017 to repair a ruptured colon, I was hopeful my mom would recover easily enough, move back into her two-story house, and get on with her active retirement life. That wasn’t meant to be.

The long surgery brought about post-operative delirium and the end of her days of independent living. She went from rehab to staying at her home with me as her caregiver to a one-bedroom apartment in an assisted living facility. When she qualified for Medicaid the following year, her living situation was downsized to a studio apartment in another assisted living facility. When her Medicaid provider rescinded the contract with that facility this fall, we downsized again. She now has a bedroom and semi-private bath.

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With each move, my husband and I have had to sort through her things, furnishing her home with only those items that would fit in the smaller space. My mom loves holidays and had a plethora of holiday décor. She also loves to cook and had a well-stocked kitchen. When we sold her house five years ago, we packed up countless boxes of her household items and stored them in our basement.

After the latest move in September, we realized that it was time to let go of everything we’d been storing for her. Hundreds of items. We unboxed everything in our basement, added all the new items to the piles, sorted and categorized, shot photos of every group, and then contacted an estate dealer to see what price we could get for the entire lot.

After getting the offer (about a third of what I’d anticipated), I thought about it overnight, and, with my husband’s encouragement, made the decision to post everything on my Facebook page to see if anyone was interested in any of the items. It turns out, a lot of people were.

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For the next week, I corresponded with friends and family from all over the country. People stopped by our house to pick things up, I drove well over 100 miles delivering items, I shipped packages, and we made a couple runs to donate items to a local charity thrift shop.

What seemed like such a daunting task turned out to be a wonderful experience. It was gratifying to see that all my mom’s beloved belongings found new homes where they’d be appreciated and used once again. Marie Kondo would approve.

The recipients of the items included family, old friends, classmates and workmates, neighbors, a preschool and daycare, a priest friend, and me (I kept a few things for myself).

Probably the sweetest story is that of my long-lost cousin, who’d been adopted at birth and has just come into our lives through one of those DNA-sharing sites. She and her daughter now own the majority of my mom’s Christmas décor. It was expensive shipping those items across the country, but they treasure having this connection to their aunt and extended family.

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More people than I’ll ever know have been blessed to have a part of my mom with them. #CatholicMom

In the end, I’m so glad that I chose to undertake this project, even though it took up the two weeks that I was home this fall between trips. My husband and I have our house squared away just in time for the holidays and more people than I’ll ever know have been blessed to have a part of my mom with them. It doesn’t get much better than that.

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