More Letting Go

I just wrote about my thoughts on holding onto "stuff" on my personal blog, In the Shadow of His Wings but I feel like my mind is still as cluttered as my attic so this post is kind of a continuation. Besides, with three blogs to keep track of... I'm thinking that starting a post on one blog and continuing on another is a good idea - at least every now and then (smile)! So... here are more of my thoughts about letting go of "stuff."

Letting Go... Part 2

OK - I'll just come right out and say it... Ron was a pack rat! He came upon it naturally as his father is a pack rat (sorry, Dad) and his grandfather was a pack rat. Now, they are not nearly as bad as the families I have seen on Clean House but, they do tend to hold onto things... just in case they might need them one day.

Ron's grandfather died not long after Ron and I were married. We hit the road and drove across the state to the town where his grandfather had lived for many years. At first glance the house didn't seem to be the home of a pack rat. Ron's grandmother was in the kitchen baking pies. Everyone loved her pies and, since all of the family was arriving for the funeral, she was baking as fast as her fingers could peel apples. This was a sweet, old home, filled with the fragrance of cinnamon! But... everything was not as "Leave it to Beaver" as it appeared on the surface.

With several members of the family in town for the funeral, it was decided that we should take advantage of the extra hands and get some things taken care of around the house for Gramma. A few of us were assigned to the clean out the basement. The basement was his grandfather's domain. It was scary! We found about a gazillion empty baby food jars and margarine containers. We found stacks of old furniture that was piled from floor to ceiling which, over the years, had become critter condominiums. We found old canned foods that looked like those jars on the shelves in biology class. We found so much scrap wood that I'm pretty sure was enough to build a small house. We even found a dead cat! There is no telling how long it was in there because it was hard to see with all the clutter. Grandpa just didn't get rid of anything!

Over the next few days I listed to stories about Grandpa's "collections" and how he was brought up poor so he held onto things - just in case he might need them one day. The stories were told with love, the way only families can. This was the first time I had met several members of this wonderful family that I had just married into. Over the years I would discover that Grandpa's children and grandchildren shared his tendency to keep everything, including my new husband.

Ron held onto everything and I don't like clutter. We moved a few times during our marriage and I remember having to move several boxes of his from house to house. These boxes were never unpacked. They were just stored. I asked Ron why he kept them if he never opened them and he just said that it was stuff that he might need one day. I, on the other hand, used each move as an excuse to get rid of more stuff. Moving was a great opportunity to clean out all the closets and drawers! Ron just liked to pick up the drawers and carry the entire mess to the new house.

Not long after Ron died I decided to go through those boxes that were stacked in the garage - the boxes that had been moved from house to house but never unpacked. Each time I opened a box I started to laugh. One was filled with old notes from school that went back to the THIRD GRADE! One had boy scout stuff. One had old techy stuff that was obsolete. (Knowing him as I did, I'm sure he thought he might use the parts one day.) One was actually filled with dirty ROCKS! I think the only thing I ended up keeping were Ron's old Hot Wheel tracks and cars. I thought Nick might want to have them one day as they didn't make the old orange tracks anymore. He might like to have a collectible from his dad's childhood to one day pass to his own children.

In addition to Ron's boxes, I also got rid of many things that were "ours." Friends did not think this was a good idea and tried to talk me out of it. But, what looked like a perfectly good bowl to them was, to me, a bowl that I hand-fed my husband out of when he was too weak to hold a spoon. What looked like a great couch, was a piece of furniture that Ron laid on for weeks before we realized that we needed to bring in a hospital bed.

There are things that we hold onto because they hold wonderful memories. But, there are also things that we hold onto simply because they belonged to someone we loved and it seems wrong somehow to get rid of them. It was very easy for me to get rid of items that held memories of Ron during the last few months of his life. These aren't memories that I necessarily want to hold onto. I want to remember him the way he was before the cancer moved in. But, watching Clean House is making me think about this in a new way as well. Perhaps some of the things I have been holding onto are things that I have kept only because I would feel guilty parting with them. I don't know if the actual item really holds a great memory or if I'm just afraid to let one more piece of Ron go. If there are no more signs of him or anything that belonged to him in my home, does that make Ron any more gone?

I have so many wonderful photos and wonderful memories of Ron and the life we shared together. I don't think any of the "stuff" that belonged to him, or to us, makes those memories more real. I treasure the memories and they will be with me forever. A day doesn't go by that I don't think of Ron or mention something about him in a conversation. But, I want to rethink whether or not I want to treasure "stuff." This weekend I am going to take a good hard look at every item that I have held onto simply because it belonged to Ron, and I am going to pray about whether the item truly holds some significance to me or to Nick or whether the item and Ron's memory would be better served by passing the item along to someone who could truly use it. I don't expect this to be an easy task, but I do expect it to be a positive one. I'll let you know how I did!