Sifting Through the Past

I went to my mom's house this afternoon to sort through some of her furniture, household furnishings, and personal items, so I could decide what, if anything, I want to keep.  I've put it off, I know, as a means of self-preservation but it's time to get things moving.

It's so strange to walk into my mom's house.  I still feel her presence there but not as strongly as before.  It's like her spirit has, for the most part, drifted away and is no longer inhabiting the house she lived in for more than 40 years.  The fact that her house hasn't been lived in for so long is part of it.  Also, Tracy and Alice have packed up a lot of stuff, so the house has the feel of someone in the process of moving out, of moving on.  I guess, in a way, that's what's happened.  My mom has moved on.

I think I've mentioned this before but it's strange to realize that so much of what one accumulates over a lifetime - furniture, photographs, art, lamps, books, televisions, every day china - all of that stuff - is so important, so necessary to one's life and, yet, after one dies most of it gets dispersed - to stranger in an estate sale (coming soon), to relatives, or to a landfill.

How can it be that all of these items - this stuff - that was so personal to my mom and made my mom who she was and her house what it was - is simply going to be given away or thrown away?  It's mind boggling and a little troubling to me.

How do I decide what to keep?  We have enough stuff at our house, as it is.  Do I keep some of her furniture - the practical stuff - just because it was hers and it will remind me of her?  Or do I keep some of her knick knacks?  In truth, those type of things remind me of her most of all.  Thing like -

• the Eddie George (former Titan running back) autographed photograph
• the Drew Bennett (former Titan wide receiver) note and photograph 
• the letter to her from C.M. Newton (former head basketball coach at Vanderbilt) 
• the framed newspaper articles from the Music City Miracle and the Titans' run to the Super Bowl

Those are some of the things my mom loved and that made up the spirit of who she was as a person.  Sports was such a big part of her life.  Days like today, when the Titans win an exciting game (vs. Tampa Bay), the pain of her loss, her death, is more acute, more immediate, and more visceral.  Damn, she loved sports.

I didn't really find much in her house I wanted, which makes me a little sad.  It's time to go through everything, though, and discard what we don't want that has no value and sell the rest of it at an estate  sale.  It's time to get her house - the house I grew up in - ready to be sold.  It's past time, really.