Letting go the past

When we moved from a bigger house to the one I am in now (Which was a great improvement in so many ways) Dauvit would take box after box of stuff out to the disused byre and sort through it putting load after load to the mart. In the new house we still had way to much stuff but we were going to sort through the boxes as we could. Unfortunately Dauvit's health failed rapidly after we moved and those boxes never did get sorted in fact as older family members left us they grew.

In 2009 I spent most of the year living out of a suitcase bouncing back and forth the 308 miles between our home and the hospital Dauvit was in, in Glasgow. Eventually we got word he would probably be coming home and I raced back to get things ready. I stood in the house and cried I couldn't even figure out where to start there were things everywhere. A woman from our church offered to tidy up for me and I bounced of again to make more arrangements. I returned three days later to discover that everything had been moved and anything she thought had no use or I wouldn't need had been taken to a charity shop. From then until Dauvit's death I would continuously find myself looking for things and not finding them.

Now it is 2013 I have great difficulty bending, lifting or kneeling down so gradually the house has turned into a complete mess but the events of 2009 have left their damage and I feared to let anyone in, in case I lost anything else. I have visitors coming at the end of May and was in a complete panic I had had several ideas of people who could be paid to get the place ready for me but my fears were stopping me from contacting them.

Enter Christine, I have written before about the girl from a local café who adopted me after Dauvit died. She finally said to me the other day "I have never been allowed in your house we need to get this sorted" finally we agreed that I would pick her up on Saturday since she works all week and she would make a start on the clear up.

Saturday morning dawned (And yes I saw the dawn) with me pacing the floor feeling physically sick about what would be happening that day, would we be able to do this and still feel friends. I picked her up at eleven so she could get a long lie then headed back to start work.

What a day it turned out to be, quite amazing. Three bags at a time, one for rubbish, one for the charity shop and one for craft stuff she worked away nothing went in the bin bag or the charity shop bag without her checking it with me. There were a few tears as we came across things that I thought had gone, things that would not have meant anything to an outsider like the cake stand that had belonged to Mum and a sandwich plate of my Grans.   There were some tough decisions to make, as well it is strange the things you can get sentimental over but did I really need to keep all of Dauvit's tools. The answer to that question was of course NO but what helped me make it was Christine's constant reassurance that nothing would go if I wanted it no matter what it seemed to her.

A tough day, and more to come but all in all it has been a good day and when we are done there will be less to clutter my small house and her gentle understanding is wiping away the fear of someone being in my space.