Senior Moving Solutions

A Tale of Hoarding: Honor Thy Father & Mother

Several months ago, I met with a hoarder; I’ll call him Dr. F. An eighty-nine-year-old retired physician, he lives alone in a five-bedroom house, in which every room is literally filled with “stuff.” His kitchen has an eighteen-inch aisle to walk through; all other space is covered in piles that stand six feet high. He has no access to his sink or stove and receives home-delivered meals. None of the bedrooms in the house can be walked into, because...Read entire article »

When Things Can’t be Mended

One of the most difficult aspects of packing is handling items that are fragile and have been previously repaired. These items are especially vulnerable to repeat damage, either at the point of prior repair or at another section. Sometimes, no matter how careful you are, these items break. I’ve thought about this issue recently: how some clients are especially fragile, like items that have been previously repaired, and sometimes the stress of moving pushes them to the breaking point....Read entire article »

A Life that Matters

I have decided to make a former client my role model. I met him half a dozen years ago, when he was in his early eighties and moving to a retirement community. As we began planning his move, he said, “I lost my wife three years ago. Sorting through our belongings makes me feel like I am losing her all over again…I wish I could go away and come back after the move.” And so he became our first...Read entire article »

Helping Parents Move Upwind

In sailing, the technique used to move upwind (or against the wind) is called “tacking.” Although tacking is actually a combination of vector mathematics and boat design, to most of us, it refers to the concept of making forward progress by zigzagging rather than moving forward directly. For adult children helping their parents transition from one home to another, tacking can be a very useful technique. I met recently with a woman in her early eighties. She suffered a...Read entire article »

Reunions, Reminiscence & Reflection: Stories to Tell

Last week I gazed at photos from my fortieth high school reunion. Some people looked exactly the same, but most had changed. Some were thinner, some were heavier, many were gray-haired. I spent the most time looking at pictures of the girls I had placed on pedestals during high school—the pretty, the popular, the thin. I was so hard on myself then. Sometime during the past forty years I came to accept who I am—the good and the bad—and...Read entire article »

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