My mother must have been in her sixties when she gathered my younger sister and me in the dining room and sat us down.
There on the oak table that was purchased with a reimbursement check for my mother’s stolen mink coat sat piles of my grandmother’s china, boxes of pearl-handled silverware, a plethora of sterling silver trays, pitchers, creamers, and an assortment of cut-glass, non-essential table pieces.
“I want you girls to decide what you want.”
My sister rolled her eyes. What the hell would she do with any of the stuff? She lived on a ninety-six-acre farm.
While I’m the “City Gal,” I was, at the moment, unsure what I’d do with all the items in the pile. My husband and I didn’t throw big sit-down dinners, and our kitchen cabinets were jammed packed with our own overflow of gadgets, appliances, packaged food, seasonings, plastic wrap, aluminum foil, placemats, kitchen towels, jars filled with rice, couscous, raisins, nuts, and a full drawer of hammers, measuring tapes, nails, and an assortment of screws, just in case.
My mother was undeterred. “I want to make a list now so, in case . . . “
“In case of what?” I asked. “Is there something you’re not telling us?
“No . . . ,” she said. “I want to be organized, and, if anything should happen . . .”
“What’s going to happen?” I asked. “I don’t know why we’re doing this.”
The gnarled rope in my stomach twisted even tighter. I wasn’t prepared to assist my mother and father in decluttering and, likely, some time in the future, moving them across the country from Michigan to Florida.
My mother was the maker and keeper of the To Do List. Every morning, she’d pull out a piece of notebook paper on the kitchen counter and, in her perfect script, use a pencil to write all the things she wanted to accomplish during the day. She’d check off all the items, one by one. (This is, by the way, a trait I inherited from my mother. It has taken years for me to let the day take me where it may.)
My “baby” sister spoke up and said something like “I can’t use any of this. I never entertain, and I don’t have storage space.”
My mother’s face caved ever so slightly. “You never know when the dishes will come in handy.”
We both knew that we’d met resistance that was impossible to curb. When my mother made up her mind, there was little chance of changing it.
I could be wrong, but I think my mother had not long before closed out my grandparents’ home after my grandmother died, and she’d moved my grandfather, her father, into the guest suite in the basement of our family home. I didn’t appreciate then what a Herculean task that must have been, and how that certainly solidified her resolve not to put such a burden on any of her three remaining kids. (My brother lived in France. He was out of the picture.)
I ended up with more silverware with pearl handles and a complete set of my grandmother’s Spode “Rosebud Chintz” china. The set has resided in the same oak cabinet in two homes over the course of several decades. I’ve used it maybe a dozen times, if that.
Jeannine Bryant, a recent guest on “Older Women & Friends,” is a professional senior move manager (Who knew?) and owns her own company. She knows all about helping seniors find that place between too much and too little. Her company can handle everything involved in decluttering and/or moving. Boy, I wish I’d had her counsel years ago. She recommends that folks start the decluttering process no later than seventy-five. Oops, I missed that boat. (I turned eighty this year.)
My mother dragged my father kicking and screaming from their condo in Longboat Key to a state-of-the-art senior living across the bridge in Sarasota. They were in their early eighties. The move almost killed them. It was too much. Hell, I was overloaded with the photos and other stuff they packed up and shipped my way. I still have the manilla folders with my dad’s handwriting on the front: Jane.
“For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.” Benjamin Franklin
I start tackling my office closet tomorrow morning.
