How I’m Handling My Aging Mother’s Clutter
By Kara Stevens
I was 21 years old when I plotted to throw out as many bags of my mom’s belongings as I could while she was out of town for work. That was the summer of 2002.
Marissa, my best friend at the time, cleared her schedule to help me haul the bags from my mom’s second-floor bedroom to the porch. There, Vlad, her boyfriend, would be waiting.
His job was to load his truck and manage the getaway, which meant stashing the bags in his trunk overnight and unloading them at a local Salvation Army in the morning.
But it didn’t go as planned because I went back for just one more haul.
As I dragged the last garbage bags to the porch, a taxi pulled up to the front of the house and my mother emerged.
“You have no right to take my things and throw them out,” my mom said once she realized the bags weren’t filled with anything she would consider “garbage.” In fact, they were filled with clothes — albeit items she hadn’t worn or recognized in years — and what Antiguan immigrants like her would argue were worth keeping simply because she spent her “good, good money” on them.
In hindsight, she was right. I had no business tossing out her belongings.. But I was desperate.
As a child, I yearned for a clean home — a hangout spot where I could invite my friends to after school, on the weekend, or during long breaks like the cool, happy kids I had seen on Family Matters, Moesha, or The Cosby Show — without having to explain the clutter and doors closed to hide bedrooms whose floors you couldn’t see or navigate without jeopardizing your safety.
When her husband, my father, left his young wife, son, and daughter to be single and child-free back in Antigua, my mother retreated deeper and deeper into our house, filling it with items that would distract her from dealing with the loss. In one fell swoop, my mom had become a statistic: a single Black mother and our family’s sole breadwinner and protector in a foreign country. By default, as her only daughter, her youngest child, and a Black American woman-in-training, I was assigned the role of being my mother’s best friend, a proxy for a husband, and her “good little helper.”
By the time I was a teenager, I had lost hope we could fix our family and heal what the American Psychological Association defines as intergenerational trauma.
I reluctantly accepted that my mother couldn't close the growing gulf between herself, her things, and me; I vowed that I would never own a home. I also promised myself that I would never hold on too tight to any one thing or any person for fear it might destroy me.
When it looked like Trump might be elected president in 2020, my husband and I began to revisit the once-casual, intellectual conversation about repatriation to his homeland Ghana like W.E.B. Du Bois.
I was torn, of course. I saw the immediate benefits of raising my dark-skinned daughter, who was four years old at the time, in Ghana, free from colorism and racism. I also saw a slower, softer life where rest was an integral part of living, not a reward for labor. For my husband, I saw freedom from police brutality and implicit bias at work.
But I grappled with the question, what would I do about Mom and the house?, because they came as a package. A ten-minute drive to her would balloon into a ten-hour flight.
In the year leading up to our big move in 2023, I invited my mom to live with us in Ghana, where she would have house help, a driver, and a personal cook, all things she wanted but couldn’t afford on a nurse’s salary, and be closer to her only grandchild and me.
But she refused. Her life was in NYC, she said.
“If your parents are resistant about downsizing, then make some time to have an honest conversation with them. There are likely many reasons behind their resistance that they may or may not be able to verbalize to you,” says mental health expert Danielle Niakaros, M.A.
At 83 years old, she was confined to the basement of her four-bedroom, three-bathroom home, which she converted into a studio apartment as her mobility declined over the years.
“Well, if you don’t come with us, why not sell the house and move into an assisted living community? It’s too much house for you.”
“But it’s your inheritance, Kara," she insisted.
As a first-generation Black American, the magnitude of this statement was not lost on me. “There's great pride that comes with homeownership for Black and immigrant families. It is a badge of honor especially for our elders, who had to overcome systemic racism, red lining, and refusal of traditional loans when acquiring these properties,” says Ticora E. Davis, estate attorney and founder of The Creator’s Law Firm.
What my mother couldn’t see, however, was our house never felt like a home to me and I was ambivalent about her expectation that I be responsible for the property as one of her last wishes.
Before my big flight to Ghana, I spent the morning with my mother. We talked about what I had packed, when I was returning to visit, and my plans for her grandchild's education abroad. Most of our conversation revolved, however, around estate planning. To my relief, unlike the state of the house, her personal affairs were in order. She pulled out a legal pad with handwritten notes and hard copies of policies, phone numbers, and bank account information, and explicit directions on where to find these documents amid the clutter.
“I was attempting to control the future. I wanted to be free to focus on mourning the inevitable loss of my mother and nothing else”
Between the waves of guilt, sadness, and numbness about my move and my mother’s mortality, I finally understood what I couldn't grasp 22 years ago.
I used to think that my failed attempt to rid the house of my mother’s clutter was something that I was doing for her, or something I was doing to make peace with my past. But that was only partially true. I was attempting to control the future. I wanted to be free to focus on mourning the inevitable loss of my mother and nothing else.
I was looking to disrupt what seems to be our society’s default life-stuff-death cycle: An elderly parent passes away; and then leaves their adult children to spend months, if not years, combing through piles of things in attics, basements, and garages while they grieve.
I will not be afforded this luxury because my mother still can’t let go, even at 83 years old, to the memories and reminders of the past.
And that is okay because I’ll be prepared.
I’ve started a grieving fund where I set aside money for hiring professional cleaners, and a trauma-informed organizer to help me make hard-yet-compassionate decisions about my mother’s belongings efficiently.
My plans also include partnering with a property management company if I decide to rent, rather than sell, my childhood home. “It’s important to familiarize yourself with the states in which the property is located, landlord tenancy laws, and have an assessment done on the property to ensure that no major repairs are needed that will cause you unexpected financial burden,” adds Davis. “Ask yourself if you are prepared to manage your property, have the means and time available to manage tenants, and do upkeep. This is especially important if you do not reside within driving distance.”
I return to the States early next month for work. I plan to visit my mother; this time without worrying about the future or rehashing the past – just making the most of the present.
Kara Stevens is the founder of The Frugal Feminista and author of heal your relationship with money. She lives in Ghana, West Africa with her family. You can follow her @frugalfeminista.