Mize: Excellent work, Marni

number was closer to seven in ten, but my immediate family would remain among the living. Death was for other people. Now, seeing my parents at this stage, I started thinking the number might actually be close to ten in ten. This awareness might be what some call maturity.”

•“Simply and starkly put, sorting through a household makes us face our own mortality: the passage of time, life and death, where we’ve been, where we haven’t been, where we are in life, successes and regrets. That’s enough to give even the most hard-hearted human pause.”

•“Age does not confer value” when it comes to antiques.

•Quoting Peter Walsh, professional clutter organizer and media personality: “When everything is important, nothing is important.”

•Quoting your mom’s advice when facing tough times: “The best way out is through.”

•Quoting Mark Brunetz, host of Style Network’s “Clean House”: “This is not about getting rid of everything. It is about keeping what’s really, really important.”

With chapters on how to know it’s time your parents need help in a new home, the emotions surrounding your own old home place, working with siblings, sales and estate sales, value and appraising antiques, selling the house, archival storage, heirlooms, and so much more — so many nuts and bolts but all enlivened by your big heart — I’m not kidding when I say: Excellent work. I will recommend “Downsizing the Family Home: What to Save, What to Let Go” to all my pastor and ministry friends, to share with the adult children of aging parishioners, to anyone at any assisted-living center starting the conversation with would-be residents or their children, and to anyone else who can see these challenges on the horizon.