[00:00:02] Speaker A: And I said to her at one point I was like, you can do this yourself, you can hire someone like me, it's going to cost you a ton of money or you can work with me here. And so it was her learning to trust me.
It was very challenging. But at the same time it was equally as rewarding to see her walk in and see her house condensed into a two room apartment.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Welcome to the Age of Aging, a show about living well with an aging brain produced by the Penn Memory center in the Michael Nadoff Communications hub. I'm Jake Johnson and I'm joined today by the executive producer of the Age of Aging and co director of the Penn Memory Center, Dr. Jason Karlewish. Thanks for coming on today.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: It's great to be here, Jake.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: So I wanted to have you on the introduction to this episode as well as the discussion because you were actually the original one to bring in this idea. I was. So what was so interesting to you about this topic of downsizing and moving from your home, your long term home?
[00:01:14] Speaker C: Yeah. So why is a physician and writer interested in decorating or undecorating a home? Yeah, it seems to be a classic Carlos wander.
But in fact, especially with one practices in the space of memory disorders, broadly in the space of geriatric medicine, the question of what is home and is home working ought to loom large. And you know, I thought a lot about home in my practice. What does it mean to what is a home?
You know, the obvious answer is, you know, four walls, a ceiling and a floor, at least two walls, maybe some windows, some furniture, stuff like that. And often we associate it with a place he'd been to for a long time. But, you know, that's the physical manifestation of home. But I think there's more to that than just the objects and it's the feeling of being home.
And so I think that feeling of being home is created by the brain interacting with those objects. So it's not just the objects and obviously it's not just the brain, it's the brain interacting with those objects. Well, now focus onto my area of clinical work, which is brains being assaulted by diseases like Alzheimer's.
And I think you can see how the feeling of being home becomes threatened for the patient, most certainly, but also for the people taking care of that patient who have to understand what it's like to be that patient.
And you know, more and more in my practice, I found that people need to think early, often and hard about what is home. What is this feeling? Is this still here? Is it working? And if the answer is to any of those questions, not sure, no, et cetera, you really need to revisit it. I recognize that the classic sort of reason to move from home is often a physical issue. No bathrooms, except on the fifth floor. And stairs all the way up there with narrow risers. You know I'm joking. Okay, well, we gotta move because, you know, climbing stairs are impossible because of heart failure or whatever. And that's a very real issue. And no way am I minimizing it. But I think there's a deeper, more profound mental issue that surrounds being in your home. And in dementia, of course, where the mental is the problem, namely, the mind is under a transformation by a disease, like late or Lewy body disease. Home needs to be rethought. And what that means, to sum up is the rooms you're in may no longer be working. The objects that are around you may no longer be working.
We need to change the rooms, change the objects. Hence the idea of we need to deconstruct home.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Yes. So that was my next question, because you were very adamant about this idea. I was deconstructing home as being the title.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: That's terrible.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Terribly.
[00:03:38] Speaker D: Yes, yes.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So could you just give a little explanation why deconstruct home?
[00:03:42] Speaker C: Yeah. And you didn't like it. I know. Because you thought it was too high.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Flu.
[00:03:45] Speaker C: I was trying to play a locust walk, college prophet, pen. You know, deconstructing. But truly, I think the concept of deconstructing home, I think, has an important double entendre, double meaning, number one, the actual physical act of deconstructing. So we spend our decades of life constructing our home, quite literally, maybe building, and certainly not building, at least, you know, refinishing it, repainting it, refurnishing it, et cetera, putting on a wing, et cetera.
But, of course, what I'm alluding to in my earlier remarks is there comes a time when you need to take that apart or take it down, but clean it out, throw it out. Objects. But also, there's this idea of, again, the social theory of deconstruction, which is, what are the various objects, ideas, concepts, beliefs that assemble together to create an idea? That's the idea of constructivism and therefore deconstructing. Take a literary text and figure out the various trends, themes, ideas, concepts that surrounded that text's creation and deconstruct it. And I think that's what we do in this episode, which is we deconstruct the idea of home and why we make homes and the need periodically to then do the physical act of deconstructing them.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I think it was a great coincidence that when you brought this in, you know, you had all these, you know, philosophical, theoretical kind of ideas about what home is and deconstructing. And immediately I thought of my aunt who did this for a living for six years. So I was like, I know somebody to talk to in the business. Yeah. And she actually moved my grandmother out of her home single handedly. And it was a huge kind of task in my family was her moving my grandmother.
So that is featured in the episode, which is great as well.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: Yeah, we'll hear about that. And indeed, for all of my highfalutin addiction and ideas, well, maybe high fluting, this comes straight out of the salad meat and data of real patients.
And quite frankly, much like you, also a family member. And we'll talk about that in the discussion. But let's get to the show.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: All right, let's jump right into it.
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[00:06:54] Speaker A: There's clients where we walk into their houses and we'll literally say, how do these people's kids let them get to this point?
[00:07:01] Speaker B: For six years, Christy Mabe worked as a move manager for New Roots Move Management in Wayland, Massachusetts, helping people, particularly older adults, declutter their home, downsize, or move into retirement communities.
She's also my aunt and we judge.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: And I walked into grandma's house and I'm like, how did her kids let her get to this point?
[00:07:22] Speaker B: In the summer of 2024, with years of experience moving older adults out of their homes and into new ones, Christy offered to help move her mom, my grandmother, out of her condo in Connecticut into assisted living.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: It was so bad and I didn't. None of us knew how bad it was. I had nowhere to put anything. Literally. I had a purse and a cooler And a. I'm like, there was nowhere. No counter space. It was awful. I don't. I don't even know how it happened.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: The conversations about moving my grandma into assisted living happened slowly, Christie said, and required some nudging from her and her four other siblings. But eventually my grandmother agreed to it and was set to move in October of 2024.
While Kristy had a lot of experience in this area, she had always worked with a full team. Now she was going to do it alone.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: I had like six weeks and I didn't know if that was enough time. I had no idea. I'd never done this by myself. I'd never. I didn't know. I had no idea. So anyway, I just. I heard Anne's voice, my first manager just start.
And that's what I did.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: According to Susan Blumenfeld, founder and owner of New Roots Move Management, where Kristy worked as a move manager, having an adult child help you move is actually pretty rare.
[00:08:35] Speaker F: Your kids aren't really going to help you. Every once in a while people have the rare child who's like, I'll help you. And they actually do. And I know all the intentions are there for the kids, but it's. They all have their lives, they're working and all that. But when you have a senior move manager, we will fill in. We're like, you know, like your daughters, your local daughters. And we're also. Can be as much in touch with your children as you want or not.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Move management companies like Blumenfeld's act as a third party for older adults looking to move. They pack things, hire movers, rent dumpsters, and can even help prep the previous house to be shown on the market.
One of the most difficult tasks of a move manager, Blumenfeld said, is to assess how much stuff can actually be taken to the new location and then what of the remaining items can be sold, donated, and what things just need to be thrown out.
This aspect of the job is one part organizational and another part interpersonal, as the move manager starts to help the person emotionally transition from one home to another.
[00:09:39] Speaker F: Let's say we're moving someone into assisted living, which means they're going to get some assistance. And the apartments are generally small, very modified kitchens. So here we are downsizing someone who had a big family who did Thanksgiving and holidays and Christmas and Passover and name it all of them, and now they're not going to be doing that anymore. So we were very gently getting their heads around it, and we do a floor plan. So now the person the client knows, okay, this is what I can take. You know, one of my sayings, and I'll say a lot of my sayings throughout this interview is, now it's time for the best of the best. You, my client, you're going to use the best of the best. You're going to use the best dishes, you're going to use your best bedspread, you're going to use your best pots and pans. You're not saving them anymore for anything. And the point of moving is your life is going to be better. You're going to be less isolated, it's going to be ten times more fun. You're going to meet new people.
You don't have to cook anymore. We always do the that I don't have to clean any more. Dance like, no more mops.
Another thing I say a lot is, remember your first apartment with your partner, without your partner, with your girlfriend, whatever it is, you got one pot, one pan, one. You know, you know, it's not crazy. You don't have 30 mugs and 50 glasses and four sets of dishes. And everyone always smiles. And also, I love to hear their stories.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: For as much positive and supportive energy as Blumenfeld tries to put out, at a certain point, she has to use a bit of tough love.
[00:11:13] Speaker F: We kind of warm them up for the first session or two. And very quickly we know what's important to the person and what's not. And we also know when they say it's important and it's not. And we might point it out like a glass. Glassware will get like greasy if you don't touch it for years.
So don't tell me that's an important glass when it's like slipping out of my fingers. And I will say it, in a way, I'll try to be nice, but I also will be tough about, like, really.
And I'll just say I'm asking the question. There's no judgment.
[00:11:44] Speaker E: I think that one of the difficult parts are people's expectations.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Charlotte Schutzman is the founder and owner of All Moving Matters, a Philadelphia based move management company.
[00:11:56] Speaker E: How quickly it can happen, how little time needs to be spent, how little money that translates into. And I think people's expectations of the value of their items are, are not often in sync with what the market is.
So that is something that's very, very difficult to explain to people. That this beautiful armoire that they saved money for, that they purchased, that's meaningful, that may have even come from another family member, may have no value at all.
I'd say another one is actually the recyclability and reusability of everything.
There are some clients who want nothing to go into the landfill, which is worthy and good, and we work to do that. But it costs a lot of money to do that in a very odd way in order to get things to the right places. And so people have to understand kind of the cost benefit of a lot of the different things.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Dementia is one aspect of the move that can further complicate things.
If you know you have some form of memory loss or you're the child of the client and are aware of this. Schutzman said it's important to let the move manager know they will likely lean more on family members for support during the move and will take lots of pictures to try and mimic the new space as much as possible.
Kristy said she quickly realized a few things. One, she was going to need to be staying at her mom's house full time during the week in order to get this done.
And two, the emotional part of moving her mom was going to be the hardest.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: I lived there during the week and I went home on the weekends, so I was pretty much commuting. There was so much to do and it was so overwhelming and my biggest struggle, you know, the emotional part of it is the hardest, I think the hardest obstacle with people you don't know, but it's 10 times harder with someone you do know.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: Christy said her and my grandma's first struggle was with timing.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: So I'm up early, I'm always up 5 o', clock, not by choice. I am up. I'm ready to, I'm ready to go. Well, Grandma didn't get up until 10ish. And then she would, you know, meander down and put her breakfast on and open her computer. So by the time she was ready to do anything, it was like one o' clock. And I'm like, that was so hard for me because I've been up since 5 o' clock and I'm feeling like I'm here. I'm wasting my time. She didn't understand what it was going to take to get her packed and moved in six weeks.
I barely knew. I knew it was tight. I knew it was going to be hard. But she had no concept.
You know, it's not like with a client, you make an appointment where we're going to be there from 10 to 2. We show up at 10, we end at 2. But with mom it was like, okay, I need, I need that structure. I need to know that you can focus and be ready to go at a certain amount of time. So that was a hard conversation to have, but she did it. She ended up getting up and being ready to work by 9 o', clock, 9:30.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Other emotional challenges of moving began to arise with my grandma, which Christie had seen many times throughout her work.
My grandma had collector's items she was convinced had more value than they did, as well as items with sentimental value that were difficult to part with. Many of them related to my grandfather, who died over 40 years ago.
Of course, working through these feelings was much more personal for Christy, being the daughter of the person she was helping.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: One of the things that I don't even do this with my kids is I won't throw out anything unless I have your permission. So even with clients, I mean, certain things are obviously garbage. But with mom, she had this calculator from when I was growing up, and I remember it from when I was little, but I was clearing out this one drawer in her kitchen, and I went to get everything out, and I grabbed the calculator and the rubber had gotten sticky, you know, like old rubber. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is so gross. And so I threw it out. Well, when we were going through the kitchen stuff, she's like, well, where's my calculator? Dad gave me that.
I was like, oh, my God, I never do this. And of course she's not going to believe me that I never throw things like that out. But it was so. It was so gross. I couldn't imagine not throwing it out. But I didn't tell her, so I had to own it, and I had to dig through the garbage and show her why I threw it out. It was awful.
So anyway, I broke one of my own rules.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: My grandma's frustration and grief with the move came out in more personal ways, too.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: She would say things like, well, you're making me throw this out. No, Mom, I'm not making you throw anything out. She would blame me for things. And I'm like, I'm asking you, what do you want to do with this? And it was everything. And if it was a client, I don't have to. I don't take that on. It's not about. I know that that was the other thing that was hard for me is that Grandma's not big on please and thank you. She can get very bossy. But that was hard for me when I was helping her because it was easy for me to feel unappreciated and taken for Granted, you know, the feelings were just magnified because it was my mom and, you know, she wouldn't push back the way she pushed back with me with someone that was hired to do this job. And I said to her at one point, I was like, you can do this yourself. You can hire someone like me. It's going to cost you a ton of money, or you can work with me here. And so it was her learning to trust me.
It was very challenging. But at the same time, it was equally as rewarding to see her walk in and see her house condensed into a two room apartment.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: For as difficult as those six weeks were, Christy said they were also incredibly gratifying and meaningful for her.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: That first night that she was there was. It was a whirlwind. I mean, I can't imagine. I don't know exactly how she felt, but I think she was very overwhelmed. She didn't leave her room for a couple days once we all left.
But it was shortly after that that she. She expressed how grateful she was and how she felt like she was home and she was happy that she did it, which of course made me cry because that was a hard six weeks with her.
And I didn't want her to look back on it and only remember the times that we butted heads or that we fought or, you know, got mad at each other or. Because that time to me was so meaningful. Because that sense of accomplishment and that sense of the feeling you have when the client moves into a new place or that we finish packing, I was getting to experience that with my mom.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: Susan Blumenfeld estimated it takes her team an average of 180 hours to move someone from start to finish.
She said this will likely be double that if you're attempting to do it on your own.
She recommended hiring a move manager at least two months in advance of the move and to give yourself at least a year to do it on your own.
Keep in mind that hiring a move manager is a relatively expensive service that Blumenfeld said you should treat like a once in a lifetime expense, like a bat mitzvah or a wedding. But if that's not something you can afford, Charlotte Schutzman said, just make sure
[00:19:22] Speaker E: you ask for help, whether you pay for someone like me or you reach out to your family, a trusted friend. Don't do it all alone. It's really difficult to do for the children when we say we don't need help and we've got it all under control, that as we age, they shouldn't take that as an assurance you don't have to be in their face and doing it all the time. And maybe you want to hire someone else. But look for signs of changes in your parents when you go and you visit at the holidays. If you're from far away, you can notice things about the house. You may notice that the house is not as well kept as it once was.
You may notice things in funny places, and these are all signs that maybe some changes need to be made. But don't assume that if your parents say they don't need help that they're totally fine on their own.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Here's some more general advice from the move managers I interviewed.
1. Getting in the regular habit of pruning can help you reduce clutter and get used to letting things go.
2. Just starting is one of the hardest parts, so choose one thing like a closet or a drawer, and just start going through it.
3. Stay away from storage units if you can, because they're expensive and will likely become someone else's problem when you die.
And finally let go of the obligations you feel to keep certain items. If you have a gift from someone that you've never used, just get rid of it or blame it on your move, manager Shutsman said.
Mary Ellen Weber is a former client of Schutzman's.
[00:20:59] Speaker D: Every move in your life usually is expanded. You know, you get a bigger apartment, a bigger house, a bigger, bigger this. You go here, you buy, you know, buy this or.
And this was a downsizing, I guess, and it was emotionally traumatizing. I won't, you know, it was. It was difficult and there were times where I sat and felt very sad.
[00:21:23] Speaker E: We hear from a lot of clients.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Charlotte Schutzman, again, what makes it so
[00:21:28] Speaker E: hard is the feeling that this is the last place they're going to go to. This is where you go to die.
And that's a really important thing to understand.
That fear of moving often is really the fear of what comes next in their life.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: But Weber said that despite the difficulty of the transition, it was also incredibly necessary and beneficial for her and her husband, Robert, to move into a retirement community, especially as Robert was having more and more difficulty getting around.
[00:22:00] Speaker D: We had tried for a while to have someone come in to help, which was lovely. The person who helped us was really, really wonderful, but it didn't solve any of the loneliness that my husband had and the interaction with people, she said.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: After visiting a friend who had moved into Fountain View in Philadelphia, they were both sold.
[00:22:22] Speaker D: My husband said this is like a cruise ship because he could just Take his walker, his rollator, and go to the gym. He could go to the balance classes. He could take the elevator to breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And Robert goes down in the morning for breakfast and I come up and he stays and talks with the guys. So his life is enriched and so is mine. I can't imagine now at this stage living back where we used to. I mean, I can't imagine it because life is so much easier here. It takes a little bit more planning. You know, if, like I made gazpacho the other day and my kitchen was huge and now I only have size of a cutting board, you know, we had a wonderful dining room table that broke my heart, but there was take up one half of one room. So that had to go. And that was hard because I cannot host in the way we used to. We can do things differently, and you just go with it. And it's the people. It's not the place.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Weber said that at the end of the day, she made the move because she believed that her aging was her responsibility.
[00:23:40] Speaker D: Aging is not your children's responsibility.
It's your responsibility. You know, it's my responsibility.
They have their lives and they have their families. They have their children. They still have their jobs. They have a limited vacation time. That is not what you want your kids to be spending their vacation or sick time taking care of you. You should try to, you know, take care of yourself and let them have their life. Because you had your life, and because we have downsized so much, there's not going to be a whole lot for them to.
To deal with. And I'm very grateful for that. I'm very grateful for all of the help that our children have given us to make this transition because we could not have done it without them.
I think you have to be grateful for what you have, and you see what's happening all around the world and how grateful we should be and all these other things are. Really, it's just stuff. It doesn't matter. It doesn't. Doesn't matter.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: All right, welcome back. I'm joined again by Dr. Jason Karlewish. So, Dr. Karlewish, what have you learned in your practice from patients and caregivers about why moving is so emotionally difficult?
[00:25:12] Speaker C: A couple reasons, most of which, many of which are in the show that we've just heard. Beginning, for example, when family's doing the moving, there's a host of emotional entanglements around objects, et cetera, who gets what's worth keeping, et cetera, which even if you're working with a professional is, of course, intense, not so much for the professional, because they don't really care about your set of decorative teapots. But, you know, they have to work with you to decide, you know, do we really need 30 teapots or what, whatever it might be. I think it's emotionally difficult in very unique ways for each patient and caregiver. But I think there are some overarching kind of themes or questions that sort of capture why.
And I hear these played out in my practice. So a common question I get from patients and caregivers is some variation on how long can I remain in my home?
And that's a question which behind it, of course, is a host of matters related to disability, perception, et cetera. And I often ask that, well, what are your concerns about remaining in your home?
But behind that also are some other questions and, or statements that often are uttered by patients, sometimes repeated by caregivers, that the patients told them, I want to stay in my home forever, or on the caregiver's part, I will keep her, I will keep him in his home forever. And it's these kind of swearings of, you know, the home that has been created shall always endure for this person.
And of course, as we talked about at the beginning and we've heard amply across this episode, the idea that home, as you are living in it now, with the mind that you have now, will work forever, is, I just think, a fiction. I think the way that diseases that cause dementia distort perceptions, cognition, function, in addition to some of the physical impairments, oftentimes make the home that you are in no longer work for you.
And I've seen this played out across multiple different patients. And it's sad, and I'll use that very blunt, three letter word sad, to see how some patients and caregivers almost bind themselves to this mast of I will never leave this home.
But having said that, there are some examples where you have to be really judicious about how and in what ways you change home.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Tell me more about that.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: Yeah, so I'll give you it's no longer acceptable to say someone has dementia, I think, and then not ask the next question, which is what disease is causing it? Now, in some cases, we can't figure out the disease that's causing the dementia. We have a rough idea of maybe one of them, but we think there are others. Having said that, I have certainly ample examples from my practice of people whose dominant problems are amnestic problems, particularly related to hippocampal and mesial temporal lobe damage caused by limbic associated age related TDP encephalopathy or late, also sometimes, of course, Alzheimer's. But these patients have real severe impairments in their spatial neurons.
So they have real difficulties making and keeping new memories, particularly spatial memories. And there does come a time for these folks that if you change their environment, if you change where they are, they will not figure out this environment. It will be a real challenge. And I have a great case study that we discussed in a prior episode of a woman with late who was moved and just could not learn the new environment and had a rapid decline in her cognitive abilities until she was moved back to her old home, where she's doing fine now, years later.
Having said that, though, I have cases of patients with late where the families now understand this issue.
And I have one family that, having engaged in this dialogue with me, moved the mother to an assisted living. They redid the floor to match the floor of her main room.
They relayed out the key furniture in the new assisted living, main room, living room, exactly the way the furnishing was in her other room, including the decorative objects above it, positioned as close as they could spatially to the way it used to be in her living room. So they essentially reproduced her living room from her house of 50 years in this assisted living. And the transition worked out well.
So I guess my point is oftentimes home no longer works. You need to move, but you need to then be very judicious and thoughtful about how you do it, respecting what are the particular problems that this person has as a result of their dementia.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Yeah, and that is brought up a bit in the episode that dementia really does complicate this process of moving from for the move managers, because people start to forget things, they're not really sure what they're supposed to be doing when the move managers aren't there.
[00:29:46] Speaker C: Yeah, no, there's the organizational aspects.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: The organizational aspects. And so they were talking a lot about what you were saying, taking lots of pictures, trying to almost exactly match the space of the new place to their old home exactly in order to make this a less cognitively stressful process for them.
[00:30:06] Speaker C: There's another aspect, though, of moving regardless of dementia, which is it's a real test of what do you value and why do you value it? You know, why am I holding? And then, for example, the story about the calculator that your aunt told, which all of us would be like, this calculator is frankly junk.
And yet, of course, it had enormous value. And I think the Aspect of moving that I think is stressful for all, regardless of cognitive impairment. But I think, particularly for cognitive impairment, where memory, oftentimes episodic memory of your autobiography is slipping, is what to let go, what things in particular, stuff should just be let go and no longer cherished. And I guess this is, I think, where professionals are really key, because when family gets into that, it can be really complicated and tense.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I was curious myself, listening. Obviously, this is a very. I have a personal connection to the story, but I was curious if you had a personal.
[00:31:04] Speaker C: I do, I do.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:06] Speaker C: Have you done this before? No, I do. I do. My father had dementia, and it was caused by Alzheimer's and late. And I think his initial symptoms were mostly driven by late. And I think the AD pathology came in later. And I'm saying this because not just clinically, but also I made sure he had a brain autopsy to confirm all the pathology I suspected.
And he was hospitalized once because of a heart attack, and within a matter of hours became what we would call delirious. He was acutely confused, somewhat agitated, and it took the form of not being able to figure out where he was.
And, of course, the moment he returned to his home, he was fine because he was back in that place he'd lived in for 50 years.
Same thing when he was hospitalized several years later, again for a heart attack. Complete confusion. In fact, he thought he was at home in the hospital.
And I was convinced, although he died in the hospital that time, that had he been able to go back home, he would have probably been substantially reoriented because he knew that home backwards and forwards. Now, that all sounds sort of. There's a certain sadness to it, there's no doubt, but it also sounds quite poignant, which is, you know, he really needed that home of some 40, 50 years that he lived in.
What's interesting, of course, is that was becoming a real challenge. He had help coming in, which certainly made it possible. But the house had a lot of challenges, and we were reaching a point where it's not a question of whether, but when more help's needed in a house that had no room for help and was, frankly, a clutter, et cetera.
And he absolutely was adamant all along that he was not gonna move out of that house. He was a very socially isolated guy, had very limited social circle, very much a stay at home guy, did not like to travel. And so I just simply respected, like, this house with all of his stuff. And he was a collector of antiques and decorative arts from the late 18th, early 19th century, his stamp collection, et cetera, his stuff mattered more to him than even people.
And being in that house with his stuff and his stamp collection, his magazines and his.
That was what was him.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:13] Speaker C: And compared to others who might be like some of the other people you interviewed, where moving to a new home gave them a whole. Gave them humans that they could connect with and they like flourished.
And that wasn't gonna be the case for him. So he stayed at home until things got really rough. As I say, a heart attack ultimately took him. But that home, as cluttered as it was, worked for him, given what he wanted.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: It's interesting to think about it. I'm thinking about my grandmother, who is you talked about in this story. She was very similar in a lot of ways, where she had a lot of collectors things and a lot of stuff in her house and she lived alone. She never remarried after my grandfather died in the 80s and she went to choir. That was kind of her socializing. But she's pretty introverted person.
And it was actually really interesting after my aunt Christie moved her into this assistive living, which was right outside of Philadelphia, near my other aunt. So that she was close by.
She really. I remember visiting her about a year after and she actually was very lively.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I can't.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: In a way that I was so
[00:34:23] Speaker C: surprised by as much as Americans especially, and for reasons that are understandable, loathe residential long term care. Because the stereotype, of course is the nursing home, which is essentially modeled after a hospital setting with the quote, semi private room where you're separated by a curtain which is beyond. It's like cruel comedy. But residential long term care done right can be a wonderful last place for people to live in large part, but not only because of the ability for humans to do what humans need, which is another human around them to thrive and grow. You know, I mean, you know, whether one believes in the Old Testament or not, is the word of God. It's non issue. I mean, God ripped out the rib from Adam because he said it's not good for man to be alone.
Now we could debate all those issues about it's not good for whatever, but setting aside matters of gender and all that kind of stuff, we have in our culture this idea, and I think for good reason that isolation, solitude might be useful for periods of contemplation, particularly solitude, but fundamentally isn't good for human flourishing. And a well done residential long term care provides that. And I think that's why I find these people who are Sworn to the mast of I will never leave home, we will always keep her in her home, or are essentially binding people, oftentimes to lives of isolation and solitude. But back to the stuff issue that your grandmother had. Let's just say that my father had this tall case Hepplewhite clock that he absolutely adored. I think he paid, like $12,000 in cash. He dies, no one wants the clock.
It needed to be refinished.
We managed to get Freeman's local wearable, respected, wonderful auction house based in Philadelphia to sell it, and they finally sell it for $1200.
Anyway, my point is, yes, you may have a Picasso or whatever else that truly is priceless. Hang onto it. But many of the things we think are priceless, if you're holding onto them because they're priceless, they probably aren't.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
That seemed to be one of the biggest challenges that the move manager said to me is trying to convince people that their stuff was not as valuable as they thought it was. I know. And I got so much random stuff from my grandmother's house when she moved that I don't use at all. They're sitting in my extra storage, ready
[00:36:32] Speaker C: to be handed down to your. Exactly.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: To the Next Generation.
[00:36:36] Speaker C: So I guess, you know, I thought we'd make a closing point here, which is summertime movies tied into this episode, which was.
I made you all go watch the Odyssey.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:36:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
Because I said, that'll help with this episode.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Great homework.
[00:36:50] Speaker C: Yeah. And why was that?
[00:36:52] Speaker B: I'm gonna guess because it's about coming home. It's about home.
[00:36:57] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Returning to home.
[00:36:58] Speaker C: Exactly. And when Odysseus gets there, it's not like he right away claims his property. But what does he spend a lot of time trying to figure out?
[00:37:05] Speaker B: It's been a few weeks.
[00:37:07] Speaker C: Does Penelope still care for him? Is this still really.
Never mind the castle and the wine and the stuff.
But is Penelope still by Penelope or not? Because if she's not, one wonders if he might have just kept in his disguise and then left. Cause this is no longer home. Never mind whether all my stuff is here.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:29] Speaker C: And go back to Cersei and have a good time.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. And that really struck me about Mary Ellen, where she was just, you know, this is just stuff. It doesn't matter. And I thought that that was just a great note to end the episode on as well.
[00:37:43] Speaker C: And our subtitle.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And our subtitle for the episode. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on for this episode and for suggesting this topic and the title as well. I'm really happy with how this one turned out. Me too. Thanks so much.
[00:37:58] Speaker C: Good work. Okay, bye.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Bye everyone. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Age of Aging. A special thanks to today's guests, Christy Mabe, Charlotte Schutzman, Susan Blumenfeld and Mary Ellen West Weber, as well as Today's co host, Dr. Jason Karlewish. If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave us a review or share it with someone who would appreciate it. It makes a real difference in helping others find the show. And if you have a topic you'd like to hear, email
[email protected] the age of Aging is a pen Memory center production made possible by generous support of the Michael Nadoff Communications Hub Fund. Our team includes Morgan Adams, Terrence Casey Dahliel said Jason Karlewish, Emily Largent, and Allison Lin. I'm your host, Jake Johnson.
