I know it’s only been a few days but this blog was never meant to be only a monthly check-in.
I’ve had something on my mind for a bit and I think it’s amplified by all the death that has happened in the last couple of years. First JD’s parents, and then Killer, and June, and my Paternal Grandfather, and acquaintances, and now my Maternal Grandfather will be making his exit any day now. All of the death brings forward conversations about all the…STUFF…for lack of a better word.
Not just the papers involved in dying, but the actual detritus from life: the mementos, the clothing, the pictures, the tchotchkes you buy while on vacation, that extra Dutch oven you got for cheap, the books, the furniture, those embarrassing old ratty blankets you keep thinking you might need, and even the important stuff like your wedding ring or your house.
Where is it all supposed to go? And who is supposed to keep the story around it? My Mom informed me on the phone last week that she’s been doing a little Swedish Death Cleaning (look it up if you aren’t familiar, it’s fascinating!) up at my Grandmother’s rural country house and has encountered all manner of oddly-infuriating things: a collection of ancient paper sacks neatly tucked on the top shelf of a coat closet, about a bazillion stained Tupperware containers, a water-bath canning pot that belonged to my Great Grandmother that my Grandmother has literally NEVER used, and at least one card that I wrote to my Papaw for Father’s Day when I must have been 4 or 5 years old.
And that card was neatly tucked away in what I am sure was a pile of random papers, photos, and old bank statements. That fact that my Grandmother saved it is bittersweet; on one hand you want to say “Aww, that’s so adorable that she’s sentimental” but on the other hand you know there are probably 500 other random cards like that laying around in boxes and piles and *someone* is going to have to make decisions on what to do with all of it when my Grandmother dies.
It’s exhausting to decide where someone else’s things should go – especially while grieving. I know this because, two years after losing JD’s parents, we are still wading through things in their house and financial affairs.
Jd’s Mom was a “saver” as well. Papers, mostly…but a lot of them. A LOT.
Cards from JD from when she was a teenager. Cards from JD’s Dad to JD’s Mom. Tax statements dating back to the 1970s. Church bulletins. Funeral programs. Bank statements. Genealogy research. And a metric ton of recipes, neatly clipped from magazines and newspapers and stored in envelopes, photo albums, and shoe boxes.
It’s easier now almost 2 years later to donate the old Christmas decorations and books but in the beginning, turning loose of even a single scrap of paper with Mom’s handwriting on it was part of the “undoable” list of things that become impossible once grief takes root.
All of this is to say that I’ve had a bit of an epiphany lately – not just about the stuff we leave behind when we die but the idea of memory in general…and in particular, how we leave our mark in the world. I am not quite sure what to do with that yet but it boils down to the idea that most of the people who live on in the collective memory of humankind have either written something amazing or painted something amazing or built something amazing. That’s not to say that actresses and sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe won’t forever be remembered, or even Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson but I’m thinking in the long term – the Picasso for the ages. The Tolstoys and Orwells. The Frank Lloyd Wrights.
I was laying in bed earlier thinking about how I want to be remembered and that lead me down the path of thinking how we really are only remembered for one generation, maybe two if we have children, but for the most part our lives are a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things and nobody will remember a thing about us in 50 years.
Maybe someday, someone will find this blog and think, “My, this woman loved to dig in her mental belly button”, but more than likely this will all blip into oblivion roughly 6 months after I die because I’ve made no provision for anyone to pay the bill on this server. And hell, do I *want* to be remembered through this or any other thing I’ve written? Do I want people to know my name in 50 years? Not really. I just want to live now and be happy and make my days count and I feel like I could be doing a much, MUCH better job of that in all honesty.
I have more thoughts on the stuff but It’s almost 6am and I’ve had no sleep. Suffice it to say, I sacked up for donation about 8 more garbage bags today of everything from clothing to kitchen stuff and another 2 bags of trash. I’m purging – Not the little purges I do all the time, deep cuts. It feels like progress and that’s what matters.
/fin