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A month ago I found myself wishing my mother were dead then immediately having to deal with the resulting feelings of guilt and shame. But I still wished she were dead. My mother is 90, and until last month, lived alone in a small 932 square foot house in a cold northern city. Almost alone. The house was overrun by mice. She kept them company, and fed them well. My mother is a compulsive hoarder.

My sisters and I had been encouraging her for some time, to abandon the state she'd lived in and loved for nearly three decades, and move closer to one of us. When she finally decided she'd had enough of shoveling snow, and cold, dark winters, she agreed to come live with me and my husband. We agreed to go help her pack up. We knew she saved things, knew she bought many things she didn't need; but nothing prepared us for what we found.

A move that we had expected would be accomplished in two weeks took over a month. It was when we were filling the first of five - fifteen cubic foot dumpsters, that I was overwhelmed enough to have the death wish for this woman who gave birth to me, but in many other ways was a stranger.

For years, she'd shut us out of her life, burying herself alive in piles of papers, hoarded food, and other "stuff" so deep, no one had set foot in her house for years. There were two recliners in the living room so buried we didn't know they existed the first two weeks we were there. She didn't have a bed to sleep in; she would lean against a pile of papers, and we wondered why, when we talked with her on the phone, why she wasn't sleeping well. I was never able to take my children to her house, to have them learn from a loving grandmother how to make cookies, or to share a meal, or play a game. Once she told me, people hurt too much; things don't hurt you. Oh, but they do. They rob your life, steal your soul. I should feel pity for her; I struggle not to feel contempt.

Do not think that I did not try to change things before this move. I tried. I called a psychologist, the state board of health, and other resources, practically begging for help. I was told as long as she was not a visible threat or risk to her neighbors, and was mentally sound; there was nothing that could be done. It would violate her civil rights. It is ironic that now in a different state, there is often in the news someone who is facing charges of neglect for not getting their parent or loved one out of this kind of environment.

While we faced each new day shoveling garbage from

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