“I need to work on my office,” Susan says as she leads me through the kitchen into the family room on our first visit. “I’m bombarded with paper and I can’t manage it anymore. I’m losing things and it’s getting out of control,” she says tossing her hands in the air. Susan’s office is a 4 by 6 corner of the family room. It’s the “command center” of the house as well as the mail repository, mudroom, technology recharging station, snack bar and dump zone for school work. This active space is exploding with paper, “I don’t know what to keep and what to shred,” she says flatly. “So when the paper piles up, I shove it in a plastic bin and set it someplace to sort later.” I ask her where the paper goes, and she giggles, “I was afraid you were going to ask me that.”
It isn’t until we get to her bedroom that I really understand why Susan struggles so hard with sorting. In talking through ideas on how to better utilize her bedroom space, Susan reveals she is a widow and is having a hard time getting rid of anything that belonged to her husband, Charlie. It is obvious to me that Susan is suffocated by sadness.
After seeing the rest of the house and getting a deeper understanding of where Susan is emotionally, I make a bold suggestion, “I know you hired me to organize your office,” I say as we sit in her bedroom surveying the room, “but I think we need to work in this room first.” Susan is surprised. “But the stacks of paper in my office are driving me crazy, and all this stuff (she points to the boxes of paper at our feet) has been here so long, I’m actually used to it,” she says giggling. Her gentle, almost childlike laugh is disarming and makes me want to wrap my arms around her and squeeze her tight, “I know the paper downstairs bothers you,” I tell her, “but when I look around your house, every room screams ‘you need to do something’ and there’s no place you can go to get away from it. You need a refuge -a quiet, restful place where you can close the door and melt into a book or devour a box of chocolates or just forget about the world without feeling guilty about everything you haven’t done today.” Susan’s eyes instantly fill with tears. “You need a place where you can heal your heart and rest your tired mind; a place to recharge so that you have enough energy to tackle the daily grind of life.”
Susan reaches over her shoulder and pulls a tissue from the box, “I haven’t been able to touch any of Charlie’s things since he died,” she confesses, “because it’s just too hard. But I’ve been talking to myself about it for a year now and I know it’s time to make some changes.” She pulls another tissue from the box and lifts her glasses to wipe her eyes, “And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go through all of this stuff because you’re right, I want my bedroom to feel calm and peaceful, and it doesn’t. It feels worn out and tired, like me,” she smiles. “But I can do this,” she proclaims, and then repeats it again several more times, “I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.” We exchange a warm hug and schedule our next appointment for 3 days later.
When I return, Susan is enthusiastic and assures me she’s ready for the day. In preparation for our work together, Susan has placed a folding chair, several recycling bags and a box of trash bags next to the bed where we will work. I can sense her eagerness so I skip the small talk and get right to work. “The easiest way to begin the process of sorting,” I tell Susan, “is not to focus on the entire scope of the project, just keep it simple. Focus on getting through one pile at a time, one box at a time, and create a rhythm. If you get stuck and can’t decide what to do with something, let me know and I will guide you.” She takes a deep breath then disrupts a pair of reading glasses nestled deep into her thick, short hair and places them firmly on the end of her nose, “That’s better,” she giggles. “Now I can actually see what I’m sorting.” The tone for the session is set — Susan is ready and willing.
Within an hour, Susan is efficiently sorting and recycling and seems to be working at a comfortable pace; she stops abruptly when she sees a yellow post-it note stuck to the back of a piece of paper, “Oh dear” she whispers. “I know this is stupid but it is still hard for me to see my husband’s hand writing without feeling sad.” She runs her fingers across Charlie’s hand-scribbled note. “This is just a list he made, but I feel like if I recycle this paper, I’m throwing him away.” I explain that when someone dies, it’s natural to want to save things that remind us of the person or relationship we had because we shared love. But it is also an emotional trap because if we keep everything, nothing is a treasure. Susan is thoughtful about this exchange as she holds the tiny memory in her hand - and then she makes the most heartfelt gesture I have ever witnessed; Susan kisses the post-it note and then places it in the recycling bag. I am now overwhelmed and tears fill my eyes. We both take a sip of water and let out a big sigh.
Susan is able to continue sorting and a few minutes later, in the same stack of paper, finds a drawing her daughter created several years earlier. There is a hand-written note from Charlie written across the bottom telling his daughter how proud he is of her work, “This I’m keeping,” she says matter-of-fact, “Because this is truly a treasure.”
Watching Susan recycle the post-it note changed me and I am forever grateful to her for allowing me the opportunity to witness such a tender and deeply personal exchange. “Letting go” empowered Susan to continue sorting, and even though it was hard to touch and bless her husband’s things, she did it, “I finally feel like my bedroom is a place where I can relax and escape,” she says as we sit on the bed a few sessions later appreciating her hard work. “Everything is going to be okay, it really is,” she says as we hug and give each other a high-five.
As I walk out the door and wave goodbye, I know in my heart I have benefited as much from our work together as Susan, and that is the treasure I get to take home with me.