The Cycle of Life...And Stuff

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know my dad passed away in August.

The time since his death has been an adjustment for the entire family. No more so than for my mother, his wife of 64 years. To her credit, she has adjusted quite well to living alone for the first time in her life. She has created her own schedule and is beginning to rearrange all the aspects of her day-to-day living. This includes disposing of a lot of my father's things. I'm not talking about his clothes or jewelry. I'm talking about the stuff he collected and stored in the house they have lived in for over fifty years.

Did I mention he loved to collect things?

In the past two months my mother has unearthed: travel logs he wrote over thirty years of vacations, statistics from the baseball pool he was in for the past five years, books he had ordered still in the mailing envelopes, VHS tapes by the score...he taped everything he had an interest in, and gadgets of all types.

My mother has found them all. She is now making piles: things to go directly to the garbage, things I might want to keep and things my brother might want to keep. There is no pile for her. It now seems everyday when I see her, there is something else that leaves her house and finds a home in mine.

Many of these things are perfectly useful, like the dumbbells he used after his open heart surgery. As someone who loves having books around, I have taken many of them, knowing they will sit on the shelf unread.

Then there are the items which are kind of cool and I know I don't need, but I will take it anyway. Case in point, the tool in the picture. Brand new. Only god knows when we bought it, or what this 87 year old man was ever going to do with it. It is now in my house and I don't have a clue what this %# year old woman is ever going to do with it.

How long my mother's purging process will take is anybody's guess. There's the attic, basement, their bedroom, living room and the two bedrooms which once belonged to my brother and me, and which have long since become the last resting places for all of my dad's collections.

As my home begins to look like a hoarders and hers turns clutter free, I can only hope my mother's enthusiasm for this project wanes before too long. Else I may need to make some give-a-way piles of my own.

Hmmm. Who wants this...
Line forms to the right.

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