Moving Day finally approached. We – my parents, brother, and I – spent my birthday, a Saturday, packing as much as we could. The movers were set to arrive that Monday. The movers were a one-shot deal, the better to save money.
In case you’re wondering – yes. Packing up your childhood home on your birthday is about as good as life gets. There’s no need to, say, go home and tie on a buzz. No need to regret the entire pizza you choke down with your memories.
On Monday – Moving Day – the movers, my parents, and I loaded up the truck and our cars. We spent the day hauling boxes and bags from Willow Grove to Hatboro. The bed arrived with the movers. Indy put it together. Willie and I made it up with sheets and blankets. We argued over which way the pillow goes in the pillowcase.
Tag facing inside the pillowcase, am I right? That way you don’t scratch your face in the middle of the night thanks to an errant tag.
The bed, of course, meant my parents now lived in their independent living community. Their time in our house was over. They still had belongings in our Willow Grove house, though. Items that would eventually make the move from Willow Grove to Hatboro.
One would think these would be superfluous things, things they liked but did not necessarily need. One would do well to remember this is my parents we’re talking about and therefore one would be monstrously wrong.
The entire kitchen had not been packed. I mean this wholly. Not a single kitchen item moved that Monday. No Cheerios. No spoons. No frying pans. The fridge remained fully stocked. The dishwasher was full of clean dishes.
Let me say that again. The dishwasher was full of clean dishes.
Though my parents had to sleep and dress and get their morning news at their Hatboro apartment, they couldn’t make a cup of coffee or a spaghetti dinner. They couldn’t even have a drink of water.
The logic of organizing a move in this fashion escaped me.
The first thing I did? Oodles of bottled water sat in the laundry room of the Willow Grove house. I moved them to the Hatboro apartment. Next, I ordered GrubHub from three different restaurants, a variety of foods to choose from for lunch and dinner. Breakfast could be supplied by their building’s café.
Actually, the second thing I did was groan in frustration that the entire laundry room still needed to be packed, in addition to the kitchen. GrubHub was number three.
My final move was to plan my week to include as many days as possible emptying the kitchen. My error was in failing to set aside time to shake my head in disbelief at what I found in that kitchen.
I once received a book from a subscription book club. Aimed at grade-schoolers, as I was at the time, the book outlined a step-by-step process for cleaning your bedroom. It was actually called What To Do When Your Mom or Dad Says “Clean Your Room!”. I read that book over and over. Lying awake at night, with just my insomnia for company, I would repeatedly watch the child in the book wrangle the tornado of his room. It was soothing to see the neatly hung clothing, the tightly made bed.
In other words, I never would have planned a move this way.
The book suggested any room be cleaned beginning at the left side of the door, moving counter-clockwise to where you had begun. I follow that practice to this day. There’s comfort in the ritual. And so, using the hallway as the door I was to begin at the left of, I started at the refrigerator.
Dessert bowls of homemade gelatin, cracked from sitting alone in the fridge, abandoned by its maker, sat in even rows on the top shelf. Bags of produce, wilted and molding, lay in the crisper. A dangerously low half-gallon of milk stood like a sentry in the door, guarding over food that could no longer be consumed.
I moved to the cabinets adjacent to the fridge. One of the first cabinets I emptied held two tubes of cat medicine. The medicine’s feline owner had died so long ago he and my 4-year-old niece had barely coexisted in this world. The veterinarian who prescribed the medicine had retired.
Another cabinet held what we used to call a medicine cup. It’s a Tupperware container about the size of the dispensing cup for children’s liquid medications. This Tupperware cup was so ancient Tupperware no longer sold its ilk from their website.
The medicine cup was tightly lidded and holding an unknown clear red liquid. Guys, I’m sorry. I didn’t open the medicine cup. I never tried to discern the identity of the red liquid. Now, with more time and less misery on my hands, I wish I had investigated. But that day and that girl were so tightly wound all I could do was enjoy the wash of relief that coursed through me – I wasn’t holding blood, and that was good enough.
A third cabinet revealed a pouch of CakeMate Easy squeeze so elderly it had solidified like petrified wood. This product too, like the Tupperware medicine cup and cat before it, had been discontinued.
In yet another cabinet I excavated a host of ingredients for cooking – red wine vinegar with an expiration predating the advent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spices caked and clumped like used coffee grounds. Worcestershire sauce thickened into a canned cranberry sauce consistency. A plastic pantry organizer shattered when I pulled it free of the contact paper upon which it rested. More Tupperware, labeled in my grandmother’s handwriting.
That grandmother died before Kelly and Dylan ever hooked up on 90210. Before Friends. Before the internet. I assumed the contents of those Tupperware containers had, unlike my grandmom, lived through those experiences. I tossed the contents in the trash. At least the stale cereal and nasty flour were going down with their cabinet-dwelling roommates.
By now, the trash and recycling were full. The sink had also been filled, the Tupperware containers multiplying like Tribbles. I emptied the dishwasher, packing the contents into boxes as I did so, then filled it again because, yes, the dishwashing detergent was still under the sink. Boxes and boxes of dishes and nonperishable food, pots and pans, silverware, and small appliances grew in the kitchen like the castles of the Game of Thrones opening sequence.
Intent upon as little trips as possible, I – quite literally – filled every space of my car with my childhood kitchen. I had to wedge my purse between the seats. The Starbucks I treated myself to was forced to rest inside the driver’s side door.
But I could rest easy that night. Sure, dozens of boxes – and one ridiculous portrait of a cat – still needed to move. But my parents could now cook. Have a drink. Enjoy their Tupperware medicine cup filled with mystery fluid.
It’s been a year and change since that day. I’ve thought about those days frequently since. How emotionally and physically exhausting they were. How I wish my parents could have stayed in our house. I wonder if I did the right thing by encouraging them to move.
A few weeks ago, Willie called me. It was early – I had just poured my morning tea and settled into my newspaper. Indy, it seemed, had turned in the night and injured his eye. Dried blood now lay caked on his face and pillow. The eye hurt and his vision had blurred.
And right away I knew two things. I knew I’d done the right thing. They’re surrounded by healthcare professionals. They live five minutes from me. Help is right there when they need it.
And I knew I was right about the pillowcase. Tag on the inside, guys. Your eyeballs will thank you.