I have spent the past two weeks in Las Vegas, where I have returned to empty out my deceased mother’s home and ready it for sale. My mother, who grew up during the Great Depression and World War II, was constitutionally incapable of throwing anything away.
Evidence is abundant:
- Every card she ever received from anyone over the course of her 87 years, including generic cards from insurance agents, dentists, and her local bank;
- 20 years’ worth of stale rubber bands;
- Boxes of pens with no ink left in them;
- 5,000 cutting boards;
- 2,000 baking sheets;
- Every plastic container from every tub of margarine she ever bought;
- Drawers full of cassette tapes (but no tape player);
- Six sets of dishes;
- Half-consumed 20-year-old bottles of cheap wine that have the unmistakable scent and flavor of sewage; and
- Enough yarn and pattern books to fully equip a knitting-supply super-store.
I always believed that if my mother were to write her autobiography, she would have to call it, “I’d Rather Die than Throw Away String: The Bonnie Shufton Story.”
Whenever I would visit my mother, I would try desperately to shovel portions of the junk out the door, but she was always resistant to my help. Finally, she told me that she didn’t want me to help her at all; she would let me take care of it after she died.
And taking care of it I am: 10 boxes of papers to shred, countless leaf and lawn bags stuffed with junk, trip after trip to a local thrift store, engaging the services of an online auctioneer to pick up what is left.
My mother’s friends, stepchildren, and grandsons have selected and taken any possessions that are meaningful to them. I have packed up five boxes of memorabilia to ship back to the Berkshires.
The rest, sadly, will either go to the dump or be sold to strangers.
What I am left with is a profound sense of sadness and a deep sense of guilt: sadness at seeing the accumulated treasures of a lifetime disposed of so unceremoniously; guilt that I am unable to take more of it with me, to keep and to cherish. But I can’t. I am close to 67 years old and have arrived at that time in my life when all reasonable people should try to unload their excess stuff, lest we become possessed by our possessions. The days of heedless acquisition are over now, barely visible in the rearview mirror.
So now I am surrounded by towers of boxes, soon to be delivered to disinterested strangers who will, with shrewd and practiced eyes, decide what gets tossed and what gets sold.
I have kept all of my final promises to her, but this does not prevent me from feeling that this last painful task is a complete betrayal of my wonderful mother. To so casually dispose of the many artifacts that provided rich evidence of her long and loving life feels almost as if I am throwing away not just her belongings, but her as well.
If you happen to be of a certain age, and if you love your children, please do them a favor and go through your house. Ask your children which of your belongings they are interested in having. Give those belongings to them now. After that, look at everything you own—every room, every cupboard, every closet, every drawer. If you have not used a number of items in the last five years, send them out into the universe now. Don’t put your children into the heartbreaking position of having to throw the cherished remnants of your life into a dumpster.
I promise, they will thank you for it later.
