Love to Clean?

Do you love to clean? I don’t, and I don’t know anyone who does either.

But, do you have enough love in your heart to go clean for someone else? That’s what happened to us this weekend. Let me explain.

I have mentioned in a couple previous columns that we are considering downsizing. Taking care of this 40-acre farm with animals and all its required maintenance isn’t getting easier as the years pass by! Of course, getting ready for that is a lot of work, starting with cleaning. Dread! Where do you even start?

Enter our two incredible daughters-in-law, Sandra Milby and Crystal Milby (Sure am glad my sons were able to talk these two into marrying them!). They came ready to clean with a vengeance. And clean they did; cleaned floors, fireplaces, bathrooms, you name it, they cleaned it! Even my granddaughters, Reagan, Adele and Clara got into the act dusting, cleaning and polishing furniture and floors.

But cleaning was just a start. After that was furniture re-arranging and de-cluttering for picture taking. And then, the pictures themselves. Sandra is a very accomplished photographer and she used her skills to take a set of pictures worthy of Architectural Digest. I’ll tell you where you can see them in a minute. Thanks to all for an incredible act of clean love!

And of course, these days it’s not enough to have pictures only, especially if you’re talking about a 40 acre property. So, here comes the drone. Fortunately, one of our neighbors has a sideline business of taking drone pictures and video for real estate clients. So, while the ladies were cleaning all day in the house, I was busy most of the day outside with the drone photographer. I had never seen these things working up close until Saturday. Truly amazing as she was able to get it to soar to 1500 feet for overall views or hover just a few feet above the ground for close-ups while she panned her camera to and fro. Unheard of technology when most of us were kids, but taken for granted now as its routinely used for close-up shots of almost every football game we watch on our big screen TVs.

So, now I’m just back from a very emotional conversation with my wife about having to leave this place behind. A place we have literally poured our blood, sweat and tears into for the past decade. There is not a square foot of the house or acreage that we haven’t renovated in some way to make it better. It’s hard to think about leaving it behind. You would be justified in asking “Why are we doing it then”? The answer is that we both realize, along with our kids, that we can’t keep doing it forever, especially if one of us passes, and we’d all prefer to do it while we’re in reasonably good health so as not to put an undue burden on our kids. Another reason is that four of our grandchildren are still at the age where we can have a significant influence on their lives and we don’t want to miss out on that.

I still can’t believe that my wife said “OK” to me ten years ago, after being here at the farm just one summer, in its totally run down condition when I said to her “Honey, I don’t want to go back” to what most people would consider the ideal retirement community on a golf course just a couple blocks from the ocean. That’s what real love looks like. Thank you, Bess!

Thanks for reading All About Seniors… see you next week!

PS… If you want to see the pictures and video, go to https://www.facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA.

Bill Milby is a Director of Visiting Angels® of Central Georgia, a non-medical, living assistance service for seniors. If you have questions or comments about this column you can reach him at william.mercylink@gmail.com or search for us at https://www.facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA/

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