The Stuff of Life

What are your most valuable possessions?  How would you want your family to dispose of your favourite things, if you were ninety years old and couldn't live in your home anymore?

Recently, "the squire" and I were charged with the task of sorting out, cleaning up, and disposing of most of the possessions of my mother-in-law's life.  Mom is almost ninety now and her health makes it impossible for her to live alone.  She knew where she wanted to go next but the illness overtook her before she could make the preparations she likely had planned.  She spent months in hospital before she was finally able to get a place in a facility designed to handle her needs.  

And my husband and I took over managing her apartment, sorting her mail, paying bills, recording tax expenses and medical equipment costs, and dealing with the details of the life she had to abandon so abruptly.  Eventually came the time when it was clear that she would never return to her apartment and the stuff of her life there had to be removed.

It was her wish that her son and daughter should have anything they wanted for sentiment's and practicality's sake, followed by the same for her six grandchildren.  And it was a mix of sentiment and practicality that governed our choices.  Some of us took items that reminded  us of times spent together with her and Dad, when he was still with  us.  Others took furniture, a freezer, fabrics, and food.  One great-grandchild took a necklace that she had often see her Oma wear.  Another was delighted to receive one of her magnifying glasses.  I claimed dishes that I want to save for my daughters and daughters-in-law.

The squire chose a small coffee table that reminded him of his growing up years and the two forks that he and his Dad used every day.  I chose some decorative wooden fruit that I remembered as a centerpiece on same coffee table and that my young children were all fascinated to play with (and try out their baby teeth on).  One of my daughters was pleased to get the antique sewing machine that she used to watch her grandmother working with.

In the end, though, we needed to have a sale to dispose of everything that was left over.  And after that, there were bags of trash for the recycling bin and for the garbage collectors.  And still there was a lot left over to be picked up by a local charity and gain a new purpose in some other person's life.

It all seemed to require a lot of work and energy, as we laboured at it for almost all of August, interspersed with visits to Mom in her new home and last-minute changes of mind from her as to what should be done with certain things.  But by the end of the month it was done.  In thirty days we had disposed of everything gathered and carefully preserved by one person, some items still very useful and others that we could see no purpose for her having kept for so long.

It makes me think of all my "stuff," some of which I'm quite attached to.  What will it really mean in the end?  How much will my children and grandchildren value and desire to keep for themselves and about what items will they wonder why I put so much energy into preserving them?  I have to face the fact that the things I think they will treasure the most will perhaps mean nothing to them.

I hope I'm leaving them lots of valuable but intangible "stuff," things they won't have to choose between garbage, recycling, or a sale to dispose of.  I hope they'll inherit and claim faith, honesty, love, patience, and creativity.  I see some evidence that they are choosing those already and I'd like to think that I'm at least partially responsible for some of those traits in my children.  

But, just to be sure, I'll keep working at filling my life with those values and maybe, when my life is over or changes when I'm too old to manage it on my own, my children won't have to wonder what I'm leaving for them to remember me by.   And if they want some of my possessions, that's fine, too.