Empty Frames

I'm back again, and while I am beginning to think maybe I am becoming a bit maudlin in my posts, I do have a few things to share and I'd love to know how you feel about them.

My sister and I made the first step toward "getting something done" at my parents' house this week. As I said in the last post, we have to begin getting the house ready to be sold. After moving mom and dad into the assisted living facility, my sister and I were so emotionally done that we agreed to just leave the house alone for a bit. But a month had passed, and we knew that there was a lot of food in the house-food someone could use.

We went to the house to go through the cupboards and salvage what we could. Upon entering my childhood home, the only home I knew until I married, I felt a sense of emptiness. Without mom and dad in it, as cliche as it is, a house is just a house. The lines in the carpet show where furniture used to be, the items there are proof that people once inhabited the house, but there isn't any life there anymore.

Years ago, a good friend and fellow english teacher, Laura, and I taught a poem about aging. The poem, though the exact words escape me, was about a wife who had to go through her husband's belongings after his death. The line in particular that really hit our hearts went something like, "and there lay his belongings like the frames of stolen pictures left behind." We were both newly married back then, and the thoughts of having to one day experience what the woman in the poem was experiencing was devastating to us. Our husbands were young and strong, and our protectors. We talked about this subject a lot.

Now entering mom and dad's home, I hear that line in my head. I see their things, the evidence of a happy life lived, but they are all just the "frames." The "paintings," my mom and dad full of life, are gone.

We went through the food, and tossed a lot of expired things, for people with dementia tend to hoard things and really don't check expiration dates. We were also able to donate about 7 full boxes to the food pantry, for people who lived through the depression, not knowing when their next meal would come, tend to collect canned goods!

I realize that mom and dad accumulated the normal stuff that we all do: pots and pans, linens, toiletries, books, etc., but at the end of the day, none of it is really important. We gave my parents only what they need in their studio room. The reality is, we all don't need very much to live. Many things we think we can't live without are really not necessary. We place so much importance on so many things-things that will just be left in an empty house for someone else to discard when we are gone. I don't want this for my kids. I came home after clearing out the food, and began going through things I'd like to get rid of as well. I feel this urgent need to live with less.

I've never been one to accumulate clutter, but this goes even deeper than that. I am feeling the slipping of time, the longing to be a child again with my old mom and dad back. I know things will never be the same again, and I am desperate to make this ordeal I am going through non-existent for my children. I keep promising them that I will get rid of my things, and my husband and I will leave this house long before we are forced to. It will make the transition much easier for everyone.

Each time I enter mom and dad's house, it is an emotional experience, and it can be exhausting having all these emotions hit you at once. We are planning to go through the items and then have a yard sale. Sixty years of marriage and 47 years in the same house--all sold at a yard sale! It would be funny if it weren't so sad. But what choice do we have, really? We have so much ahead of us. The personal items won't be easy, I'm sure, and having to say good-bye to items that remind us of our childhood and family will be brutal, but we will take it one day at a time.

The other day my sister and I were visiting with mom and dad. One of the old ladies who also live there said to my dad, "You have very good kids." My dad puffed up his chest a bit and said, "Yes, I do. I have three really good kids." I saw the pride in his eyes, and how much we mean to him. I guess that's what is left after 47 years in a house and 60 years of marriage. And that could never be sold at a yard sale.