There's something eerie about cleaning and packing up someone's life, even though they were a big part of yours. I remember when we first arrived at my Grandmother's after she died. I looked like she got up and just walked away. It was the same with my Father.
My Sister and I have been cleaning out what is left at my Father's house. After my Mother died a few years ago, I took the initiative to say "let's clean out the house now and not wait." So now, our job is a little easier, but not any less teary-eyed.
Seventy-seven years of memories and family history. Boxes of photographs including pictures with Santa, retirement portraits, family vacations, special events, weddings. Stacks of no longer used handkerchiefs. Art work and report cards from grade school since 1949. High school yearbooks. Family Bibles. Piles of crocheted doilies made by my Grandma Alford. Embroidered table linens by my Mother. Red Men Lodge stuff from my Father.
I laughed at the stuff I found gently tucked away, saved for prosperity's sake. The tasty recipes from long ago that you loved as a kid that now the fat-in-food Nazis would frown upon. Postcards from that trip to Europe and one from Grandma and Grandpa Marshall in Florida saying they "hope you come visit soon." High school graduation cards from 1954 from friends and neighbors now long gone.
I cried at the recently purchased red-striped cotton shirt, still crisp and creased, that didn't get the chance to be worn. The fresh food that filled the refrigerator. The laundry still in the dryer waiting to be folded and put away. I realized that I was seeing the last moments of someone's life.
As I started the process, I found myself putting things away into their assigned space like the silverware that lived in the drawer immediately to the left of the sink. A small sign of lingering denial. It took years to go through some of my Mother's possessions, to admit that she wasn't coming back for them. I finally could let most of it go, except for those most cherished items.
It was and has been a bittersweet process.
CSM
My Sister and I have been cleaning out what is left at my Father's house. After my Mother died a few years ago, I took the initiative to say "let's clean out the house now and not wait." So now, our job is a little easier, but not any less teary-eyed.
Seventy-seven years of memories and family history. Boxes of photographs including pictures with Santa, retirement portraits, family vacations, special events, weddings. Stacks of no longer used handkerchiefs. Art work and report cards from grade school since 1949. High school yearbooks. Family Bibles. Piles of crocheted doilies made by my Grandma Alford. Embroidered table linens by my Mother. Red Men Lodge stuff from my Father.
I laughed at the stuff I found gently tucked away, saved for prosperity's sake. The tasty recipes from long ago that you loved as a kid that now the fat-in-food Nazis would frown upon. Postcards from that trip to Europe and one from Grandma and Grandpa Marshall in Florida saying they "hope you come visit soon." High school graduation cards from 1954 from friends and neighbors now long gone.
I cried at the recently purchased red-striped cotton shirt, still crisp and creased, that didn't get the chance to be worn. The fresh food that filled the refrigerator. The laundry still in the dryer waiting to be folded and put away. I realized that I was seeing the last moments of someone's life.
As I started the process, I found myself putting things away into their assigned space like the silverware that lived in the drawer immediately to the left of the sink. A small sign of lingering denial. It took years to go through some of my Mother's possessions, to admit that she wasn't coming back for them. I finally could let most of it go, except for those most cherished items.
It was and has been a bittersweet process.
CSM
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.."things are just things", my son used to say..It's been two years now, I still have two boxes of his "things" I haven't shared with his friends or family, mementos from concerts, artwork he created, even shirts he used to wear. Mementos of mental "Kodak Moments" that make us smile when we look at them are worth keeping! Those "things" are what we attach special memories to. We're all born and we're all going to die, and if we're lucky, it's loving memories we leave behind to inspire those we leave.
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