An Unusual Birthday

64°f , about 28°C, with light clouds and breezy after an evening and night of thunderstorms.

Well, it has been a week of sweat, sweat, and more sweat. I am already tired of sweating and it isn't even summer. We were up every day before 6 just to beat the heat. Temps in the mid to upper 80s with high humidity just suck the life out of me.

But I got done most of what I needed to to do. Larry has been frustrated with his mower repair but I think he's about got it, a good thing because with the rain last night the grass will jump.up again. I have been trying to pressure-wash the patio, and I have been frustrated too because the powerwasher isn't running right and only has bursts of high pressure. Have I ever said how much I had small engines? Larry tried to fix it in between working on the mower, with little luck. Yeah, it has been one of those weeks.

Still, the gardens are doing well. We are harvesting a few things: lettuce, asparagus, greens, broccoli, strawberries, and today we will pick cherries and maybe mulberries, if I have time--we have a cookout planned with some family and I need to cook! Pasta salad, potato salad, and a birthday cake for Larry, whose birthday was Saturday.

He had a hard birthday, poor man. A friend messaged me that she had bought a house full of furniture and stuff, and did we want to come and pick? Of course we went, and of course we bought stuff! Enough to fill the van and the truck. I had notbplanned to buy any more this month, as we just did that auction buy, but her prices were way too good to pass up. So Larry spent his birthday lugging and packing and sweating. Not at all what we had planned! Then I spent that evening and several hours yesterday washing up and pricing the small stuff. The furniture is still in the vehicles because we both agreed it could wait until after the weekend.

About this house our friend bought: it has not been lived in for 2 years. The grass has not been cut, and she said there were 7 cats living in the outbuildings.  Inside, well, no one had done much cleaning in a l-o-n-g time. Both people were smokers and they had house cats too, so you can imagine the smell. 

In this business, we have been in a few places like this one. It always makes me wonder what happened to people that they just quit trying? It was evident that they had made it a nice house at one time. There were some nice antiques, and I could see what their decorating style had been. They gardened too, as evidenced by the large amount of home-canned food and canning supplies. In the yard, a clematis struggled up from the tall grass to bloom by the porch. There was a wisteria climbing the shed, rose of Sharon bushes, forsythia,  bee balm and many other plants. There were several stained glass panels too, nicely done, so someone was an artist, but only one of these was on display; the rest were stashed in closets. They heated with wood, with neatly stored newspapers and firewood stocked up. (Nowhere, though, did I see any family photos.  That seems odd, now that I think about it.)

So obviously a home much loved, occupied by busy people. What changed, then? Our friend said that the owner had died suddenly of a heart attack at 72, and that his wife had had a stroke and had been in a nursing home for several years--probably since 2017, as that was the most recent date on the canned goods. Cleaning seems to have gone to the wayside prior to that, though, as there was years of tobacco smoke, dust,, and cat hair on pretty much everything, and drawers and closets had not been sorted out in a long time. 

But why didn't the family come in and clean the place up and sell it? Was she still living, holding on to hope that one day she would be able to go home? I had to look online to see what I could learn, being the curious person I am.

What I learned was that the man lost his first wife in a car accident. He apparently had no children with either wife, but his obituary said he had seven stepsons. My guess is that those men (they would be grown men, not boys, I am fairly certain) just didn't want to be bothered---or very possibly just did not like him or approve of their mother marrying him, and refused to have anything to do with his stuff. I did not find an obituary for her, so she may still be living, and  have realized that the best thing to do was to just sell it as is.

Now our friend is sifting through the detritus,  clearing it out as fast as she can so that she can fix the place up and sell it. She has a big job on her hands, but she's done it before so she knows what she's up against.

It does make me stop and think. If we were to suddenly kick the bucket, what would strangers think of what mess we left behind? Will there come a point when we quit trying, just let things slide, the dust and junk mail and broken ink pens all just accumulating in corners and drawers? 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.