May 19 2025

May 19 2015 Greetings My Friend Brenda came into the room with something she wanted to tell me. She picked her words carefully and said “I love you guys so much.” Brenda is aloof, eccentric and is not prone to share her inmost feelings. Brenda and her son have been placed in our lives for a good five years now. Junior worked with her son for a few years attempting to teach him how to work. One day Junior told him that we had run out of money and could no longer use his services. The young man went to work at finding a truck driving school and now has a job driving a truck. With Brenda we have befriended her. We have given her a clean home from time to time to hang out in, a place to shower and to wash her clothes. She is a hoarder and slowly she is coming to terms with how offensive it is to her son, to people in her life. Her son refuses to spend any time at home when he is in from driving over the road. He stays in the truck rather than with her. She asked him finally and he told her that he has cleaned that house 3 times and he is not doing it again. As this reality sunk in she did her usual “I am going to” comments. After one visit she got the message from her son that he meant it and made small attempts at cleaning her home, her car. At this point Junior told her that he would come by once a week to haul bags away to the dumpster. If he came by and there were no bags then he would not come back again. Junior sensed that Brenda had forgotten how to work and how to do a little each day so he went over a few times and spent an hour or two helping her. When the porch got mostly cleared off he took her to get wood to rebuild it. Brenda was so happy when they cleared enough trash from the doorway that the door could swing open fully. It is hard for her due to her bad back, diabetes and COPD. We both understand very well the struggle it is to keep our lives in order. When she is staying at our place for a few days I have insisted that she clean the room she stays in. One time when she had not been over for a spell Junior and I went in there and cleaned it. She had started her hoarding in there. At first I thought she would be happy coming to a clean room that she would keep it up. I was so wrong. Now that I understand her confusion I tell her throughout each time she is with us to pick up, to vacuum and to wash the sheets. Her progress is tiny small steps and sometimes I find I am fairly impatient with her. Put Brenda and Junior together and what a handful. Junior has his hoarding tendencies also. Junior has learned to clean up piles that I place in his comfy chair or on his desk. Junior does not know what clean looks like to me so I help him help me. The more I understand how to make clear to Junior what I call clean is the more I realize he won’t ever see it unless I speak in a way he can comprehend. Brenda has not learned the things Junior has so the piling doesn’t work for her. The consistent reminding her is helpful to her. She often says “I am watching this program.” I respond with “Then do it during the commercials or how about watching TV and picking up at the same time?” I think that allowing Brenda to “live” with us for days at a time is helping her to see the way out of the hole she has dug herself in. Besides her son Junior is now a man she has learned to trust. He is blunt with her but he tells her straight and in that she is growing. I also have had to teach Brenda to notice the new things I have done around the house. She is starting to mention them on her own now. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet