This morning I was up at 6:40am and I was in the newly renovated bathroom debating where to put a new box of kleenex I had in my hand. Would it be better here or over there and just as that was actually happening I began to realize how insignificant so many things are that I spend time on even at a stage in life where my time is running low.
If you were in a desert and only had water to survive another day you wouldn't waste a drop of it yet there I was standing there deciding on where to put a box of kleenex. When I was shooting photos, one fraction of a second was the difference in an incredible captured moment and a forgettable one anyone could take. Life is also not this ongoing infinite succession of moments that go on forever and realizing that and not wasting of them is all too often learned during the last breath we take.
These past two years since mom passed away it has been my task to sort through and do something with about two hundred years of my families belongings that were kept throughout generations. Little did I know there would be more than just the house to contend with but the memories, mementos, photos, furniture, some a hundred years old that had value to the lives of loved ones no longer here. Those larger than life people who had very little yet raised, fed, and clothed the generations that comprise the family we have today left these things that the younger generation has no practical knowledge or connection to and I have an understanding of that.
I'm cutting myself some slack over the gut wrenching time and emotions going through these things has brought to me and I will be eternally grateful to God for choosing me to have these connections and memories. At times I have felt and still feel that I am not living up to deserving to have come from these people who were my family but I know completely that God doesn't make mistakes and he made me a part of them because he thought I deserved them. I have to remind myself of that often and it's up to me now to live the life that honors God's choice of giving me the roots that I have to some of the most wonderful, resourceful, and loving people that will have ever have walked on this earth.
A recent visit with my nephew and his wife gave me some particular insight that I didn't think I wanted but in the end I knew I needed. We cling to things that belonged to the people we loved when those people pass away as if it were a piece of them we can't let go of. Those things can and in my case do, number in the hundreds and thousands from several generations. Those things can become a burden of weight in ways our loved ones would never have wanted for us. While it's somewhat uncomfortable to say it this way, it is of monumental value to acknowledge it and then more so to, do something about it.
Cyndi sat there listening to me whine about what to do with these thousands of photos I have, some dating back to the 1800s, and of people I'm not even sure who they are, and when I asked her what she thought I should do with them she very calmly looked me straight in the eyes and said, either scan them and get rid of them or just get rid of them.
Wow....... That was the moment I began to realize a lot of this weight I feel I'm carrying today is self imposed and not at all what those people I desperately miss would want for me. I love you Cyndi and your candor and perspective out of care was exactly what I needed. Even though I already knew it to be true, I just needed to hear if from another caring soul and I'm intending to implement that sentiment throughout the rest of this journey I'm on.
the people, not their things.
Sure I'll keep a few things but I can't keep it all and most of it has to go. It's on me now but it always was and my mom left it to me because she felt confident that I could handle it and do the right thing. Her own words to me were to, be right and to do the right things.
I'm evolving from grief and loss into realizing that the things we leave behind don't really matter. What matters is that we are remembered as having done our best to be right and to do right things.
One of the greatest gifts you can give today to those who will grieve and suffer at losing you one day is to take the time while you are still here to declutter and purge your accumulated stuff so they don't have to during a time when they are hurting the most.
Thank you Cyndi and David I love you to pieces. I'm unloading as much stuff as fast as I can so you don't have to do it.
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