Parentless

Parental Unit - Joe & Diana Marich

It took me seventy-one years but I finally have shed them. No more, "get your haircut", "get a job", "that's our crack pipe", nag, nag, nag. Finally, freedom.

Obviously, I'm kidding. I already had my own crack pipe.

Nancy, Joe, and I decided to wait until the holidays were over for them to come into town to begin the process of getting the folks house cleared out and on the market. They arrived this past Monday and we spent the next two days interviewing agents and in between meetings, cleaning out the collection of stuff my mother had accumulated. Once we picked an agent it was full speed clearing out everything that wasn't staying for the house staging.

It took us until the middle of the afternoon on Friday to complete 99% of it and we went through three of these bad boys. All that is left is for us to go through and give it one last cleaning.

The sheer volume of junk my mother kept would have made for a nice episode of "Hoarders". The house was very neat and orderly but she had stuff shoved into everything you can imagine. We found six boxes of every card she ever received from anyone in her life. Seven Zippo lighters and neither of them smoked since 1982. More watches than you can get at Kohl's. Clothes so thin from wear and wash that you could see through them next to clothes that still had the tags on them from the store.

Shoes never worn next to flip flops that were the thickness of a piece of paper. Towels that had edges so frayed you wondered what was she thinking especially when you found in the closet brand new ones. Four hard boiled egg slicers because you never know when you might need that many.

Anyway, my point is she had tons of junk. All three of us have sore backs from twisting and tossing heavy bags into the dumpster so many times. We'll be sneezing and blowing dust out of our noses for two weeks. There is nothing like grabbing a box on the top shelf and having two inches of dust hit you in the eyes.

The local charity asked us to stop bringing them stuff because the store was filled. Seriously. We still have at least two more runs of things to bring them and we hope they have a strong retail weekend so they have room for more. And none of that was including the furniture we still have to figure out who to call to come get it. Our agent wants the house and garage to be free of whatever we don't want because she is going to list it "as is" and our three car garage looks like a one and a half car garage because it is filled with stuff still.

Friday morning the three of us met early and headed up the mountain to do the last thing we needed to do for our parents, lay them to rest together. I selected a location that offered a fantastic view of the Coachella Valley, the place they grew to love and where they called home for the last chapter of their lives. The views above are what you see during the day in the middle and your view at night on the right.

It was a brisk 42 degrees Friday morning but we made a nice little trench and laid their ashes together, as they requested, and then covered them back up with the desert dirt and rocks. It was a perfect spot for them and I'm glad my brother and sister where in town and able to do this with me.

That was the last item we needed to do for them. We three are now all who are left to keep family traditions alive and share history with the rest of the family. I know many of you have lost your parents years ago, or even more recently, so we are certainly not the first family to go through this but it was a weird feeling to know we won't have them around anymore to call and talk or share an experience with them.

I wouldn't say I'm necessarily sad about it, just a weird thing to process. There has been so much going on and so many things that we needed to do I haven't had the time to sit and reflect on all this yet. I know it is a part of life, everyone loses their parents eventually, unless the worst happens and you happen to go first. Parents are always your emergency fall back option if things go horribly wrong in your life and without them you kind of feel naked.

Joe went back home, he still has a business to run, but Nancy and I are going to finish up the last few things. Linda will join us so we should be able to knock out the rest by Monday the latest. Our realtor thinks the house will be attractive to buyers and that it should take about 45 -60 days to sell. This is a good time of year here to get it on the market.

Once that is complete we are done with everything associated with the folks. It is now time for us to move onto the next chapter of our lives and we are all excited to see what the future holds for us.