Cleaning (as if someone else might have to)
It started with the shoes in the corner of the bedroom, continued through three closets, two dressers, and the desk in my office at work, a huge chest in my living room, a small filing cabinet, and the front hall closet. Next stop is the storage room that I haven’t visited in at least 5 years. Some might call this spring cleaning but for me it’s more episodic and usually sparked by something like being annoyed enough by the pile of shoes in the corner to find them a home. As always happens during one of these all too rare bouts of purging, I think about the family cleaning events as parents, aunts, and grandparents moved on and it’s not like I’m alone in that regard. I was having dinner with a few friends last week and we were swapping our caregiver cleaning stories. I found that my late father’s desire to hold on to his power tools was matched by my friend’s father’s desire to bring them all with him to his new assisted living facility. She showed us pictures of his