A Death in the Family

My mother-in-law passed away on July 3^rd one month to the day from her 87^th birthday. We had visited her in Tucson in June and, while she was having some breathing difficulties, she seemed to be doing quite well the day we saw her. Unfortunately, a week later we received news that she had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and was not expected to survive the summer. The family (5 children, 10 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren) gathered around, made trips to AZ for one last visit and began to comfort each other.

After Dottie passed away the work began of going through all her belongs. It was a melancholy task made a little easier by the stories shared by all about their mother/grandmother and their lives growing up with her. Dottie’s home of 25+ years as well as her more recent apartment at an assisted living facility were filled with the memorabilia collected over the course of 86 years of a life well lived. In addition to the usual furniture and everyday household items, the volume of photos, pieces of art, knick knacks and miscellaneous paperwork that had to be gone through piece by piece was amazing.

When I purchased my sailboat in 2006 it required some dramatic downsizing. In addition to selling the house, I was shocked at how much “stuff” I had accumulated that had to be sold, given away or passed on to the kids just to get down to just what I absolutely needed (and would fit) on the boat. A very few special things that I wanted to keep “just in case” the cruising didn’t work out required the rental of a 5’x5’ storage unit and even that was whittled down each successive summer when I wondered why I’d kept this or that. It was brutally difficult in the “he with the most stuff wins” attitude that most of us seem to have, but it had to be done and once accomplished, it was like losing an anchor I’d been dragging around. 

Since 2006 I have acquired a husband, a dog, a travel trailer and another house on dirt. We still have the boat but it is in Mexico where we cruise during the winter months. Chris had minimal belongings when we got together but since purchasing the house we have begun amassing “things” once again. After 2 weeks of sorting and dividing all of Dottie’s belongings we have been reminded again how quickly things can get out of hand. We have vowed to be circumspect in gathering “stuff” so that when we pass away our children will not have so much to dig through.

Still, I think a lot of the sorting, which also involved much reminiscing and retelling of family history, was somewhat healing for the family and brought them closer together. Maybe the gathering of things for someone else to deal with is a good thing after all.