A hundred years from now…

“Reflection”, by Carla.  (Click on Carla’s photography in the right-hand nav bar under blogroll.)

The things we buy, the things we keep, the things we store, the things we make, the things we can’t find so we buy them again…can all be found by our families and friends after we die.  All this stuff has some significance to us while we’re here, and certain things have significance to our families and friends after we’re gone.  They won’t always know why we kept a particular thing, and why they can’t find that special other thing they thought we would never lose. 

Yesterday and today, we had Barbara’s (Dave’s mom) estate sale.  This wasn’t one of those estate sales with antiques and collectibles.  This was a garage sale of stuff that belonged to someone we love, who died.  And, only 25 days ago.

I would guess most people wait longer to sort through these tangible memories, but none of us live near her town (Dave and I are the closest), and he’s taking time off work to get it all done, and put the house up for sale.  Along with the mandatory repairs, there’s the cleaning, and the cosmetic upgrades.  Nat spent a week with Dave getting everything started, ripping up carpet, moving furniture to the garage, and packing box after box.  Dave’s younger brother and his wife drove down for a few days to help out this week, and along with Barbara’s brother (the last of his generation), they knocked out a lot of the daunting tasks, like replacing floors, doors, bathroom fixtures, and painting.   

I arrived late yesterday after a three and a half hour drive, and so much had already been sold.  Dave, Nat, Anna, and I have been separating everything into keep/sell/donate/ditch piles for these last few weeks.  Hard to decide about things.  Do we remember where they came from?  Who did this needlepoint?  Was this quilt made with someone in mind?  Who are the people in this photograph?  Are these pressed flowers from someone’s wedding, someone’s funeral?  And, more.  Much more, from a lifetime of 77 years.  

A little girl from across the street came to the sale with her mom.  She had some barely noticeable physical limitations, and I saw in her, something familiar right away - something Owen.  She knew things we don’t know.  I watched her, the things she touched, the things she wanted.  She wanted books.  It turned out, she picked only books that had great family significance, books that no one had noticed while moving them into the garage for the sale.  One of them was actually written by Barbara, poetry and prose from her teenage years, and had had published.  Inside was a report card from her high school in 1947.  Another was a book from when she and Fred got married, and inside was a typewritten copy of his vows.  I asked her to pick out some other books, and asked her mom for help in explaining that I couldn’t let those books go.  Again, she found more books that she just handed to me, all with family history.  The books she ended up with, were special to her. 

I kept wondering how we would ever part with a single thing of Owen’s.  I can’t imagine it.  When Nat takes something from Owen’s room, it doesn’t even phase me.  It’s his now.  But, the idea of getting rid of anything is still unthinkable.  I couldn’t help but wonder, though, in the process this weekend.  Being 20 when he died, Owen didn’t have the amount of things that Barbara did, but still…will we know what everything meant to him?  Certainly better than we knew about Barbara’s and Fred’s belongings, since Owen lived with us.  Too early to fret, and no need to hurry.

We don’t have to live without love, just because our lives are changing again.  Our love for Owen and Barbara is still alive and well, just different.  We’re not able to talk with them, to ask them why they bought a certain something, kept something else, stored another in a dark closet, or used those particular colors in their paintings (Owen) or quilts (Barbara).

As soon as I drove into Petaluma tonight, I died one of my many deaths, so reincarnated myself by driving through downtown, past the movie theater where Owen worked, down Petaluma Boulevard where he spent time kicking a hacky sack in circles of kids, and looked at the Halloween decorations in our neighborhood.  Especially hard, knowing I would soon reach my front porch and the two pumpkins that await Nat’s and Owen’s carving, the carving that won’t happen this year. 

Empty rooms change our ability to conjure up some of the memories.  I think that’s part of why I write this blog.  I don’t know how much I’ll remember in the years to come, and I don’t want to let it go.  I want to hang on to it all.  A hundred years from now, who will know anything about who we were, how we lived, who we loved?  They’ll be asking, “Who are the people in these photographs?” 

Song for the night:  Empty Rooms, by Gary Moore (ya gotta love his spandex; the number 8 = power, sacrifice; the bicycle; the guitar snowglobe; the puzzle; the candle; the boy chasing the girl; the name of the street ”Kinder” = children, in German, Owen’s only foreign language - all significant, yes?)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YrflTnVxbPE

~ by Linda on October 28, 2007.