Hoarder in the family : 5 Fear of the unknown

When the hoarder was dying, he kept his hands tightly gripped around the keys to the outbuilding, the keys to his shame. He was clasping the very last remnants of his control. All the years of bluster and movement, all the years of active bullying nearly behind him. Now he held on, knowing that soon everyone would know his secrets.

That’s what I imagine.

In truth, we have no idea what is behind the door of the garage, which once housed their tractor collections, the glass cabinets full of tiny metal toys. We don’t know why he nailed shut the outbuilding that once held the cats he would care for in a misguided act of kindness, of protection.

The pictures in my imagination hopefully more terrifying and gruesome than reality.

The widow has said that she has not been in the garage since his death, but I suspect she has been inside. The roof was repaired, after a winter collapse, a few years ago.

I think that the garage will hold a lot of garbage, probably bins of used cat litter. My heart knows that this cleanup will involve us, whether we want or not. Now or in 10 years time, it will come to us.

The shed though, that is creepy. That is a where the imagination takes the reins.

What’s the worst we will find? No human bodies. I don’t think the Hoarder had that kind of evil inside. His was the misguided evil, where you think you are helping, doing good, but are harming the ones you love. Holding them close so they cannot leave, controlling their movements to keep them safe. Safe from the outside, where danger lurks.

The cats in the shed lived sad repressed lives. No trees, no grass and garden holes to dig. No rooms to escape to. No vet appointments or spaying or neutering. Just existing in a crowd, in a small windowless building. The Hoarder visiting with food, changing the litter, disposing of the ones who didn’t survive, carrying on with his act of kindness until he couldn’t.

I don’t know what’s in the shed. Something is. Not gold or treasure.

I want to burn it down to give the tiny ghosts inside a well deserved escape, to see the sparks flow into the night. Freedom at last. I want to burn it and rake the debris and plant wildflowers, catmint and chamomile. I want to smudge the area and place a fountain in the centre. or a birdbath, a small concrete cat to honour these cats who never lived as cats.

Until these buildings are exorcised, the burden of the unknown weighs heavily on my heart.

This is what I fear is inside. This is my fear of the unknown.

Hoarder in the family : 4 Scars

We have established that the Hoarder in this story, was the husband of the Widow. His death stopped the accumulation of stuff, of papers and garbage, of cats and dirt. At the end of his life, as his cancer made him unable to function even in his own dysfunctional manner, he stopped allowing the Widow to clean – to tidy – to attempt any order. It became a free fall into chaos.

I can’t pretend to understand what made him into the obstinate, racist and emotionally abusive man that squelched the Widow’s spirit. I don’t know what he experienced as a child, but something had to have triggered the meanness that the Widow lived with for nearly forty years. Yet, even now, she speaks of him with kindness. She still mourns his death.

The scars from our childhood follow us all the way through our lives, and form the decisions we make. She had suffered sexual abuse as a small child from a farm labourer at a time when sexual abuse was inconvenient and not spoken of in public, never in polite circles. It was shameful and the victim was at fault. She was in the wrong place. She was a tease. She was wearing skimpy clothes. The widow was a child though, and after the farm hand was initially dismissed, he was rehired later because the farmer needed the help.

What kind of message would that send a young child? Not only was the abuser not brought to justice, but later was rewarded when his employment was reinstated. Who was more important? Obviously the man was.

She was ripe for a bully to enter her life.

I don’t think I know a woman from my generation who was not sexually abused, in some manner. Our protectors often were the abusers. If not, we were told that the incident was somehow our fault. Now, we quietly wait for them to die, and wonder how many women we caused to be abused, by our silence. Eyes meeting those of other women across the room, learning to avoid corners, self preservation.

I don’t know the history of the Hoarder. He grew up in a small town, and didn’t get along with his siblings as an adult. He didn’t get along with his neighbours, he didn’t like the Widow’s friends, he didn’t like family gatherings, and if pushed to attend, could be belligerent.

His other side, though was this massive kindness that could flow out of him if you needed help. He would do anything for you if you were in need. If you needed a place to stay, if you needed help with plumbing or moving. When we bought an old house in the late 1990’s, he helped us run a gas line to our stove. He lowered himself through a tiny hole in the floor located in a small cupboard which led to a half-full cistern of water under our kitchen. He ran the line, in this cold water, and got our stove working.

Later that year he and husband worked together to replace our furnace. He was strong, he was tireless in those days and he wanted to help. He loved being needed.

A damaged soul, he also wanted to be a good person, and to be liked and loved.

Unfortunately, the bad often trumps the good when we remember people.

Hoarder in the family : 3 Boundaries

When I first heard of this situation, nine years ago, I was swept away with the activity of the family to help, to give aide to this fresh widow in a bind. The siblings might not have known the full extent of chaos, but I think some knew that things were not as they should be, not as they once were. The deceased partner had battled cancer for a number of years, and physically could not manage his stuff any more.

The widow, the sister, did not reach out during this time because he would not allow it. She could not touch his stuff, the piles, he locked up outbuildings and kept the keys with him until his death.

If the family had just pushed through a little further those nine years ago when the situation was realized, if the family had finished the job then, we would be in a less terrifying position now. We being two people, nine years older and much less driven to do the dirty work. Much less driven.

After my initial reaction – which was not kind, or helpful – I had to quickly reorganize my outward reactions, because I risked shutting him down and abandoning him to work through this alone. I couldn’t push him to force help from the siblings, because I could see that there was nothing coming from those directions. We are all nine years older now, and some are not able.

After three days of anger, frustration and fury at times – I realized that we needed to set personal boundaries. These would be rules we could fall back on to reign us in when the project began to spiral. It is bound to spiral, as we enter into the practical bits. The collections that will come to light. The money spent on these items, the emotional dreams that are attached to them. Whenever husband goes to visit her, he comes home with toys, which are sometimes squirreled away in our garage.

My boundary #1 : Monitoring energy levels. I will step in if I see signs of mental / physical strain. I will call ‘halt’, I will time him out. We will not be sifting though her stuff.

My boundary #2 : No stuff will enter out property. This includes the house, the garage, husbands workplace, our vehicles. No stuff.

When my sister died in 2018, I ended up with a cedar chest full of filled colouring books. She was ill with a lung disease and all she could do was read, watch television and colour. I recycled them. There were dolls as well, two of them, which went to charity. That is nothing compared to what is coming.

Once upon a time I used to sell things on eBay, and made a little cash. I was twenty years younger. Over the last nine years, while health was good, SIL could have sold stuff on marketplace, but she did not. Now it will somehow go. Somewhere. Not my house.

My boundary #3 : This project or endeavor will not infringe upon our travel time. We’ve waited many, many years to travel. We had four children and very little money. During the pandemic we purchased a comping trailer and during the summer love to camp. We are going on vacation for a week in April, to Lisbon, to walk the hills and stairs while we are able. Travel and vacations and adventure cannot be put off for a year, because we don’t know what next year will bring.

I talked to husband about my boundaries. I was sick with a cold probably exacerbated my stress, but we talked and he agreed that boundaries would help.

Husband’s boundary #1 : He will not use any holiday time to this situation. He has limited vacation time, and enough said, it goes with my boundary #3. Sometimes he will take a week and chill with a project at home, but that is his choice.

Husband’s boundary #2 : No physical work.

In years past he was the youngest in the family with energy to share. Energy to spare. Energy has to be coddled and loved. I know I’m making us out to be ancient beyond our years, but we know where we want to expend physical energy. Kitchen cabinet building left over from last summer. Model train layout goals. Gardening – and commuting to work. Again – not retired.

Husband’s boundary #3 : Financial.

I hadn’t even thought of this one. It takes money to pay for giant waste bins. It takes money to pay for people to take away stuff. The money will have to come from somewhere.

So, boundaries have helped to still the panic.

There will be more clarity in a weeks time after we view the property with our real estate agent. We will find out options, SIL will find out options.

Hoarder in the family : 2 Empathy

Or lack there of it.

We fast forward to now – January 2026. Nine years have passed, and sister in law wishes to move to a different province where another sibling lives. This is an excellent plan, but the challenge is now to get her from here to there without actually touching her stuff. Touching, sorting, tossing, organizing and so on is not in the plan.

In nine years, SIL’s health has declined and she has been diagnosed with COPD. She might have had the ability to sort even two years ago, but now she can’t. One sibling is in Alberta. Another, the eldest, also physically challenged, is four hours away. The third sibling is in the process of packing up her own house, to get remarried in March. This leaves my husband, the youngest, the only one still working full time, to figure this out.

I am quite apprehensive. I have a fairly neutral relationship with these four siblings-in-law. Over many years I have withdrawn my interaction, as they have. Husband maintains contact, I find out what’s up through him. I know I have to trust him to maintain his own life balance and set his own boundaries, It’s very difficult for me to give up control regarding my life periphery. I am also very aware of how this sort of project could snowball and become a beast that could eat half or all of our year.

I’m thinking of me while saying I am thinking of us. I’m thinking about how fragile health is and how quickly we can lose our mobility, our strength, our sense of adventure. At work I see how fast people can age, how rapidly they decline. That will, eventually be us, and we have no guarantee that we will age at the same rate side by side. There are no guarantees.

Where did my empathy go? I have it for my children, for my sister who lost her granddaughter to cancer, for my brother-in-law who just lost his wife, my eldest sister. Maybe I have given up on some unsuccessful relationships and feel my empathy is better served elsewhere.

Although I feel I am spinning in a whirlwind of survival energy, I will strive to be the calm voice in the sea of chaos for my husband. I think my empathy needs to be directed toward him, to help him navigate this shit show.

Hoarder in the family : 1

What makes a hoarder? I know it’s a mental illness. I’ve watched the shows, I’ve seen the experts come in and talk to the hoarder, to help the family, to encourage the hoarder to part with one can of expired corn or one book or one pile of soiled adult diapers, to no avail.

Husband’s sister is not like this, at least she wasn’t nine years ago. We think that her husband was the hoarder, and she was brought along on the ride.

In the 1980s, they were married, and soon after began to collect stuff. From what I remember, it was Kinder Egg toys, and possibly DVDs, camara equipment. They had no children but a love of toys. So many people were collecting Beanie Babies, dolls, plates, they did as well. Their house was small but really cute. Her husband made some good renovations early on. Everyone loved visiting them in those early days. He was not always nice to her, he was a bully. She was submissive. Nobody wanted to rock the boat.

Time passed. People visited less. Her friends didn’t visit at all. We were all busy with babies and toddlers. When we came to visit, nothing seemed to be out of control.

They built a massive garage in the 1990s to house the lawn equipment they now owned. It also housed her Camaro, which didn’t run anymore, but she couldn’t part with. It had shelf units to hold all the toy tractors they were collecting. They would go to toy shows and buy these tractors. All sizes.

My husband’s toy Tonka trucks were taken from his childhood home for their collection. Too valuable for small children to play with.

Years passed and as they do – they blend. When did the siblings stop visiting? When did the collecting stop, and the hoarding begin? When did the amassing of toys turn into the amassing of old pens and pencils? When did the collecting of Pepsi cans go from squishing them to recycle, to filling the basement because you couldn’t be bothered to squish them anymore?

It all came to a head in 2017. Her husband had been ill with cancer and died that October. In the aftermath one sister discovered the secret. No one had been to visit them in years, and the sister came to help. She found the cats. She found the garbage.

She dealt with the cats. How many I don’t know. She called on us, and we helped. We filled three dumpsters full of garbage and containers full of used cat litter. Carpets. Papers.

Over the course of a month the siblings restored her main floor to a clear and clean area. The twenty year old alcohal from her wedding, tossed out. Boxes of paystubs from the 1970s and 1980s. The room of paper piled to the ceiling, cleared out.

The upstairs was touched upon. It was semi-cleaned, somewhat cleared. Not well, so much mouse dirt. Dressers of beautiful linens ruined. Then we ran out of steam, she said she wanted to sift through stuff and sell it. We were all happy to leave her with it, feeling somewhat bruised from the experience.

We left her with one cat, a functional main floor.

Somewhat relieved, but always aware of the dark cloud looming.

Someday, someone would have to tackle the outbuildings.

Someday has come.

My Urban Chateau

My interest in chateaus tests my limitations, and tests my dreams. When I critically examine my desire to escape to Europe, I know it isn’t going to happen because I really don’t want it to happen. I love the image of faded elegance, the romance of the isolation and secrets found in attics and crevices. I love the idea of escape to the country, return to the village and baking bread in an unheated, unfitted kitchen.

I can bake my bread and eat it too.

My chateau is a 1950s bungalow. We heat with wood as long as we can in the season, and quite often I cook in candlelight, with mellow music casting a dreamy spell from my Google Mini. My sofa is circa 1930s, faded and worn, loved by cats, covered strategically by throw blankets. My furniture is old. Found in antique shops for a bargain, some made by my husband, others handed down a couple of generations.

I even have an old rocking chair that came over on the ship from England in the mid to late 19th century. I need to repair the caned back, I will. I believe that is my one link to the Old Country.

We live in our Cedar Cottage at the edge of a moderately sized city. We are neither too far West, in case of earthquakes, too far East in case of hurricanes, or too far North in case of long winters and bears. We feel fairly comfortable here with our vegetable gardens and wild flower gardens. The bees and foxes and squirrels keep us company.

When my husband asks me where I would go, I answer Portugal or Spain, or here or there. But really I don’t want to leave here to go there, I simply want to embrace myself with some essence of faded glory. I want to make rich stews on my stove with herbs from my garden. I want to curl up before a fire and realize that countless generations have been staring into the fire, just as I do.

My chateau would fit into the salon of a real chateau! But it is a work in progress. A much easier space to manage, and no grade 2 listings involved. I will continue to rescue the worn, the lovely in a time where the new trumps the old and the old ends up in the landfill. My tired sofa came close this autumn, until I gave my head a shake. The new sofa \I was considering was inferior. The foam, the filling, the fabric the structure.

I am learning to embrace the worn, the faded. The gas range that came with the house, which has the broiler on the bottom. The fridge which is too big, but was repaired by my husband with a computer fan. I am surrounded by the worn and the lined. The mirror is kind in soft light, but the screen while Facetiming my daughter is a little cruel.

The sofa and I are both elegant older beings. We have good bones. There are a few more good years left to us.

Pondering Preppers

A few years ago, before the pandemic, I started watching Prepper type YouTube videos. I was looking for ideas on how to preserve food, make natural cleaners and self-sufficiency in general. What I tumbled upon was a buzzing community of people who were very busy preparing for when ‘shit hits the fan’. It took me down the rabbit hole of food storage, water storage, and how you can protect yourself and your family, living out of urban settings in the woods, keeping a bug-out bag with you at all times and always be a grey-man when you are moving in the masses, so people never look to you as a threat, or a leader.

This kept my mind busy for a few months, as I pondered how we could weather a disaster, and I had to accept that it simply could not work, for us. Having a seven foot picture window and a working fireplace, we would be prime targets, I gave up on ever being a prepper, although I still ponder moving away from the city.

The world is changing. I can see that communal living, generational living, is something that could become commonplace again, even as I yearn to move to my fictional forest. We’re not there quite yet.

We visited our friends in Muskoka over the weekend. They have a nearly off-grid home and 80 acres of forest. It’s a gorgeous property, on a dead-end road with very few neighbours. Geoff was saying they are thinking of getting a working gun, for protection. He says that the neighbours all have guns and that they could guard the road in the event of disaster. [We, of course would be homeless by then, evicted for our fireplace – best scenario]. I stared at Geoff, who grew up in inner city Toronto like myself, and was struck by how afraid we have all become.

Having already imagined how a disaster would play out for us, I imagine the great city exodus north to these isolated communities. To these 80 acre lots. I almost prefer to go out in the beginning rather than the bitter end.

In all the beauty surrounding us this weekend, our friends are now thinking about how to protect that vastness.

Limping Along

We had our Canadian Thanksgiving last weekend, with much less hoopla than our American neighbours will have at the end of November. Ours was about gathering, and we did not have traditional turkey and pumpkin pie, but pulled pork Carnitas and apple pie, and a salad. Some roasted vegies as well. I am having difficulty maneuvering relationships with my adult children. There is a lot of angst happening, a lot of big feelings coming my way, and it is difficult to find that peace and tranquility I crave at this place in my life.

Coming out of the isolation of multiple lockdowns has made me quite rocky with my relationships. I don’t have the instinctual flow of gatherings, that I used to have. I feel as though doing my best is falling short, but I am not willing to up my effort to take on more than I wish.

And that is where I am at. Carefully doling out my time and energy while needing a lot of personal and couple time with my spouse. I think that balance will forever be my nemesis. If I looked back on all my blogs and journals over the last twenty years, balance would be the word most used.

This weekend we are heading north to visit friends who live in the forest. It will be the first time we have had an overnight visit with friends in at least four years. I am already thinking about what I will take to make my overnight stay easier. A light. A book. My pillow. Past visits have had some of us over-indulging in alcohol… I will be well supplied with fizzy water and herbal tea, from home.

Today is dark and overcast. The yellow trees and red creeper vine are popping with colour against the grey sky. Such a gorgeous autumn we are having.

I am not your captive

This entry could possibly end up being a rant.

Four years ago I lost my full time job, due to circumstances which matter not at all here, but I was plunged from office administration into part time retail work, very close to home. At this time I work at an upscale grocery store, a 9 minute walk from my home.

I’ve worked there for three years and the job is mostly tolerable. A very few older men think that because you are forced to serve them, it is my job, that they can be absolute pigs, especially to the younger women. I have zero tolerance for the ‘dirty old men’ we used to laugh about 40 years ago. There is no place for them in this world now, but a few still wander around, lewd and creepy.

This post isn’t about them. It’s about being in service, and boundaries that some people will not respect.

A customer, an older man, sigh, came to self checkout where I was working and checked out his item then said to me, Are you the lady/woman/whatever I was speaking to before? About the things that are going on in the world? And I said no, it was not me. Then he started in about the Canadian news versus the news in the USA. He was preparing to engage me in a discussion on why the US news is better, what is wrong with our news, and so on. I was trapped, a captive audience.

I interrupted him and said to save his breath, I am an ostrich. He paused, confused, and repeated : Ostrich? you mean you keep your head in the sand? I answered, Yup. He tried to engage me further with questions about my children, and I busied myself with another customer, and he said to me that I deserve what I get.

So, I am not actually an ostrich. I watch Canadian news, American news, World news, but I am not required to share my personal views with anyone in my workplace, co-workers or customers.

Just because I cannot walk away from you, doesn’t mean I have to listen to you, or engage.

Shall I Begin Again?

I have been pondering my absent blogging world, after a three year silence. I wonder if I have words worth an audience, or whether my words should stay tucked away in my bullet journals and be recycled every year, as I have been doing.

I wouldn’t want family members to read of my middle aged angst when I die, or when I lose control over my privacy.

Since the pandemic I have been writing letters and making cards for my dear friend Randy, who I have known since I was seventeen and working my first full time job, at an art supply store in Toronto, before college. Randy was twenty-three and adopted me as a sidekick. He introduced me to falafels and I introduced him to eggnog. We have written through all the lockdowns, and I even made it to Toronto to see him last November.

I will go again soon.

So Randy has been my journal. He holds the timeline of my close-to-home day to day ramblings and worries and simple joys.

But I feel the need to express more than what I write to Randy.

I have also used Instagram as a journal. I can trail back over the years and I see our hikes, our gardens, our camps, our few gatherings and even the photos of clothes on the line give me joy. Satisfaction. See me, I am still here. I am still alive, maybe even vital.

Another old friend said that she was envious of my life, when she looked at my photos. Her life has been very taxing in recent years with parents dying, her husband is at the latter stages of MS. He is planning medical suicide this autumn. There were whispers maybe even in September.

I am thankful he has that choice.

We traveled north to see them in early August, and had a good visit. My friend is not sure if she will be disappointed if he changes his mind, because she is tired. Tired of living with MS. She is worried that she will die first – that her heart will burst, and what then will happen to him?

I have been posting less on Instagram. One post a month, and that is ok too.

My dear older sister Kathy lost her eldest granddaughter this past May, to cancer, and watching her family maneuver through all these levels of grief and anger and helplessness has been stark. I see her on Friday for a coffee visit. She carries on, they carry on. The little sister is now the only child. Her position altered.

But I am fine, we are pretty well. We keep on going to work, and laughing and finding things to feel passionate about.

Maybe I still have words.