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Much of what I have had to deal with are boxes and files from my parents. Even though they passed in 2013 (mom) and 2014 (dad), the long and sometimes arduous process of sorting through their minutia has taken time. While much of what has been there is not stuff that I want, it is undeniable that much of it evokes memories for me. I recently realized that part of why letting go of stuff from my childhood and their lives is so darn hard for me is because it’s my only link to my history. I don’t have living siblings to share stories with, to remember events and people and places. So all of that comes through photos and other memorabilia. My biggest regret is not finding some of these files and boxes while my parents were still alive. There have been so many times when I’ve come across something and I would love a little more back story on it. And lacking anyone in this world who shared that history with me, well, I’m left to my own internal dialogue and wondering. So letting go of many things has been pretty heart wrenching at times. As I have pored over slides that I found of my mom’s trip to Europe in 1956 or pictures from my father’s coaching career, I admit to shedding more than a tear or two. Finding the newspaper clipping of a softball team my mom played on in Galesburg, IL where she hit .557 for the season brought such a smile to my face. Priceless is the file marked “Problems” from my dad’s coaching career. This is a treasure trove of letters he wrote to school officials and referees through the years expressing his unhappiness while at the same time containing not a few letters from angry parents for not playing their “super star” son more. I have kept these things. It brings me closer to them and helps to continue to fill out the richness in their lives since they are no longer here to share with me the broader story.
But I have also chucked piles of photographs that we have had sitting in a box. I was a spectacularly horrible photographer back in the day and it’s amazing how good the quality of photos are that we now take on our phones. Imagine the days when you shot a roll of film and had to wait to see how they turned out. Most of the time, they turned out pretty poorly! It was time to get rid of them. But some will obviously remain with me and I will tuck them away for a few years and when we return and go through our stuff once again, I will enjoy the memory that each photo brings.
Like many people my age, my mom and grandmother had beautiful crystal and china that no one wants in this day and age. I have my mom’s set of Royal Copenhagen blue flower china and that is a great treasure for me. But beautiful as they were, my grandmother’s Heath and Rose Spode plates and tea cups were just not something I would use. Fortunately a dear friend who lives nearby could not resist them and so she picked them up at our garage sale! I love knowing that they have found a lovely home in which to be enjoyed. I also had piles of white milk glass, ever so popular when my parents got married and surprisingly, I was able to sell all of that as well. Granted, for a $1.00 a piece but at least someone will enjoy them. But the Fostoria crystal of which there is a glut in the market failed to move. We ended up donating it to a second hand store and I hope someone who needs something like this will enjoy it. Letting go of these things wasn’t so very hard. We had tried to sell them on 2 other occasions with the same result and so I realized that whatever they were “worth” was only valid if someone wanted it! The hardest thing from the garage sale that I had to let go of were the books that I had won as a child on the Art Linkletter Kid’s Say The Darndest Things show. Yes, back in 1967 I appeared on this show and said some funny things. One of the prizes were this set of books that I adored. I read the cover off those books but they have been sitting in a box for many many years. I always hoped to have them for our kids but alas, that never panned out. A friend picked them up at the sale and I hope whatever happens to them, she will enjoy them. I feel a bit of regret in having let them go but that’s nostalgia speaking. I hadn’t looked at them for years. And they were a little crusty and moldy and needed to be read by someone else. Unbeknownst to me, the books were translated from Scandinavian authors, one of them being Astrid Lindgren and after I realized this, I flipped through them one last time and could see the Scandinavian influence that escaped me as a child. Sigh. I may have to call my friend and ask for them back.
But the biggest thing that I had to cope with happened yesterday. We have had my parent’s sterling silver and some of the jewelry that my mom had that I no longer wanted sitting in a drawer for a very long time. I’ve made various inquiries through the years to different shops and online sellers about the value but have had a hard time pulling the trigger on getting rid of this stuff. For some reason yesterday I came across a buyer here in the desert who got great reviews and was well located for me. So I decided to pack up the silver and grab the jewelry and head over there. I really liked the shop a lot and the offer that they made was commensurate with what my own research was revealing so I decided to take the significant step of letting go of these things. Now, there’s nothing about the silver or the jewelry pieces that were meaningful to me. I had taken what I wanted and knew that anything else that I had kept would sit in a drawer forever. There also wasn’t such a huge collection. My mother was hardly one to drip in gold and diamonds. But there were some pieces that were worth selling so I carefully handed them to the buyer as he checked out what quality the gold, silver, or stones were. Nothing is ever as valuable in monetary gain as it is in emotional connection so I just realized that if I was serious about wanting to get rid of these things, now was the time to let it go, when we were really trying to cut back on how much we were willing to store. What I had not expected was how emotional this experience was going to be. The buyer was very gracious acknowledging how hard this step is. I managed to fight back the tears as I completed the transaction but as soon as I walked out I burst into tears. I sat in my car with tears running down my face, wondering where this wave of emotion was coming from. All I can say is that it’s weird to sell your parents stuff and it’s hard to let go of things from your past even when they don’t really mean that much to you. I think I also realized that the more I let go of the stuff from my parents’ lives, the more distant my connection to them in this world becomes. We’re also letting go of the car that we inherited from them. We are super happy that the person who bought it really needs a car and it’s a great car and she will enjoy. But it’s just another thing from their lives that I am letting go of. It’s a strange thing to explain...but it’s almost like grieving their passings all over again. Even though it’s been 7 and 6 years since their passing, the loss of them remains so fresh. I long to share things with them, to talk about their lives, to hear the backstory, as I mentioned earlier. I do not regret selling the things that I did yesterday but I think I just realize that in getting rid of the things that belonged to my parents, it really is just a stark reminder that they are no longer around to care about these things. It’s a very strange place to be emotionally.
So while getting ready to make another big move, I have also been coping with the often uncomfortable emotions of coping with what I have lost and what I need to let go of, literally and figuratively. Once the nostalgia wears off, I rarely miss an item, but the longing for connection to my parents and my past will never go away. And I also know that I don’t have to let everything go. And so I haven’t. And I am thankful that the stacks of boxes that will remain in the garage has been greatly reduced. Even so...it’s been pretty heart wrenching at times to let go. Grief is like that. Heart wrenching and hard. I suppose we never let go of wanting our loved ones to be with us. We know they are in a better place, a place of peace and rest where their earthly issues are far behind. So this is what I know in the midst of all of this...it’s not really any of the stuff that I feel sad about letting go of. I don’t want any of those things in my day to day life. But I do want my parents in my day to day life and that’s not ever going to happen again. And so I cling to the things that evoke warm and beautiful memories of them and will treasure them always, either in my heart or in my garage.
