I have a closetful of memories, and I’ve managed to avoid it
for roughly seven years. With the recent
work I’ve been trying to do on my ancestry, I found it necessary to go through
the closet.
When my Mom died in 2005, I packed a lot of things up and
said I would look at them later. I boxed up scrapbooks, photo albums and music
boxes, among other things. All these
things were important to my Mother, and I had grown up with most of them. They were the only things I took from her
house. My brother took the clocks, the
glassware, and other mementos.
I was pleased to find in the very first box I searched some genealogy
research my Mom herself had started in 2001.
She wrote to the local cemeteries, did research at the library and had
envelopes of information my Aunt had sent to her when she was researching the
other side of the family. When I looked
at what my Mom had found, I did find that unfortunately, I had some of the
family members incorrect.
As I dug through more boxes, I found old photographs that I’d
forgotten about. As I went through, I
also felt the memories and the years catching up to me. I tend to deal with difficult issues by
ignoring them. If I ignored the boxes of
memories from my Mother’s house, it was easy to forget she was really gone. It doesn’t hurt as much if you ignore it.
I asked Eric recently if he thought my Mother would be proud
of me and my schooling. He reminded me that
she was always proud of me. As I went
through what she had saved (all the details of her life and of mine, too), it
started to hit home how very much she loved me.
By the time I got to the last box and the huge family Bible that always
sat on the corner of the desk in her dining room, I was ready to be done. I
knew that the Bible held a lot of dates and names – births, marriages, deaths –
that I needed to go through. I’d also
forgotten that was where she tucked away all the important things – cards,
newspaper clippings, post cards, greeting cards, etc.
I opened that Bible and started crying. It is full of “me” – cards from me, a
postcard I sent to her while on my honeymoon, newspaper clippings from my
wedding, Alex’s birth announcement, a birthday card Matt had sent to her, my
high school graduation invitation and much much more. I finally had to stop looking at what was
there and flip to the page of important dates. On the way there, I passed pages
that said “Our Children”. She’d filled
in all the information about my brother and me. Every school and every date is listed.
I did find some of the genealogy information. I also found a closetful of memories and full
of love.
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