Dear Reader Column 9-20-05

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Dear Reader,

The boxes came today. The ones that my husband and I packed up when we were at my mother's house a few weeks ago. It was my final trip back home.

I'd started sorting through some of my mother's things after her funeral, but I still faced a huge pile in her basement when I returned. Deciding what to keep and what to toss or give away, it was a slow, difficult process. What looks like junk to most people are precious memories to me.

Sorting through someone else's possessions, even when they were your mother's; makes me feel uneasy. What's left behind exposes a person after they're gone, and they're not even there to explain why they kept something all those years.

So I could only guess why my mother hung on to a tall, decorative, gold bottle with a pointed top on it. The bottles were popular when I was growing up. Ours used to sit in the corner of the living room. It didn't do anything except sit there and collect dust. I dusted it every Saturday.

Looking at it now, I can't for the life of me understand why my mother found it attractive. It's one of the ugliest bottles that I've ever seen. Nevertheless, it went into my "save" pile of things. How could I say "no" to a bottle that used to sit in the corner of our living room?

And that's how my so-called "sorting things" went for most of the day. After four hours, my "save" pile was overflowing and the "toss" pile had six items in it. I finally had to have my husband help me make decisions. We started over again, from the beginning. He was patient. I'd pick up an item, tell him a story about it, and then he'd help me make a less emotional decision about whether or not to keep it. By the end of the weekend, we'd filled 12 huge boxes with things that I was shipping to my home in Florida.

I opened a couple of those boxes today when they arrived, but I think I'm going to have to leave most of them taped up for a while. It took a lot out of me to pack up the memories, and I don't think I'm ready to start unpacking them quite yet.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
www.DearReader.com

P.S. My husband and I had a "Bread Bake-Off Contest" over the Labor Day Weekend. For recipes and photos that will make you hungry--my cinnamon rolls looked mighty fine--go to:
http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/bread2.html

Comments

[Mary Jane Harrington]

Dear Suzanne: I usually do not do this but I know how you feel. I have lost my mother to adult dementia so her body is alive but her mind is dead. I had to clean out her whole house and you can't figure some of the stuff she kept but because is still alive I have the hardest time getting rid of her stuff because it is her stuff.

[Laurel]

Suzanne:

I know how you feel. I lost the grandmother who raised me in 2000. I shared the task of going through her things. For a long long time I could not go back to her home after she died. It made me cry too much. And now it has been torn down and the only thing that remains is the peice of land and a few trees and flowers. I have my memories of her. And I feel that she is still with me at times.