Tonight I enlisted the help of my sister Kaye to wrap and pack up things from the china closets. Over the years I've been a collector of many nice cut glass pieces, enough to fill almost 3 china cupboards. But the weirdest thing happened to me as I found myself nearly half finished with the packing~I realized that I had no real attachment to most of the pieces. All that those beautiful pieces were doing was taking up space and getting dusty! Oh don't get me wrong, there were 12 different items that I realized would be in my infamous "over my dead body" pile. Other than that...the rest are just things I don't need any longer. So why in the heck do I continue to keep them?
As I systematically clean out each room and pack up the stuff I want, I can't help but think of my mom. When she moved into a nursing home in 2003, I cleaned out her house (the place where I now live) in order to put it up on the market for sale. I always had known that she kept a lot of things but didn't realize just HOW much until I started sorting through it.
Because she was a child who grew up during the Great Depression, it was actually understandable to me why mom would keep empty jars, egg cartons, plastic tubs with their lids, rubber bands, and old greeting cards. She lived by the motto "waste not, want not". But as I continued the cleaning out project at her home here, I came across a most unusual collection of things.
Tucked safely inside an old hat box, I found over 50 obituaries clipped from the local newspaper. They were laid inside the box as neatly as could be and as I read the names that belonged to them, I realized that Mom had been saving for many years the death notices of friends and family. At first, I found it be a "geesch Mom! What were you doing THIS for?" kind of moment.
But as I began to go through them, I came across the names of friends long gone now and I read with a renewed interest about their lives. Sometimes she would make a little note at the bottom like "he was the cab driver" or "my good friend from high school". As I read the notes scribbled onto those obituaries, I began to learn a great deal about my mom and the people that she counted dear and close to her.
Mom asked very little about what I was doing with the things in our house. She was happy for me to just decide who to give them to and know that they would be well cared for. But when I told her about the obituaries, she asked me to bring them up to her so she could see them once again. And so, one winter day in January, I headed to the nursing home with the box of obituaries in hand. For the next hour, we poured over those names and dates and I listened to my mom tell me stories that I had never even heard of before. And my friends, it was an hour well spent.
Tonight as I was trying to decide where to start next, I ran across an old hat box in my room that had sat in the corner for a long, long time. My dear friends, I already knew what was in that box, even before I opened it. As I pulled the lid off, there they were...by my count 150 obituaries that I had cut out of the local newspaper over the past 7 years. I had become my own mother and it was "ok".
You see, after spending the time reminiscing with mom that weekend in January, I realized the value of remembering those near and dear to me. My own box of "death notices" was dedicated to all of the many people that I've known who have passed on from this life into the next. Many of them were folks that I've cared for in my job as a CNA. Sadly, others were friends, students and family members.
I took up mom's habit of writing a message on them....things like, "a former first grade student of mine", "used to be a teacher", or "a KU Jayhawk fan!" When I had one box filled, I began with another. And so, one day when I am gone from this place, my 3 children will have the opportunity to go through my box of obituaries and say to themselves, "Geesch Mom! What were you thinking?"
In the meantime, I'll continue to pack up my things because in 3 weeks more, there will be "new residents" in this house on East 14th Street. Pretty soon, Kaye, Scott and Lisa, Chris, Danielle, and Kaylynn, and Anthony will call this place "home sweet home". I can't imagine that my Mom would be any happier than to know that even though I'm moving away, another one of her "little girls" will soon be living here. I won't be taking as many physical things as I have now, my heart will be stored with the hundreds of little memories I have made here. Oh, by the way...do you know the nice thing about memories? It's the "storing them in your heart" idea and just in case you might be wondering, my heart is very full!
Good night my friends and family. God's blessings to all of you.
It's time for "her" to enjoy a life here. So glad that she made it to Kansas safe and sound. Now if I could only get her to not feel "frozen" all the time! :) I told her, "It gets better every day!"
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