Greetings, friends. Yesterday, Brian the Liquidator finished emptying my mother’s house, aside from the few things I asked him to leave behind, and went to work on the barn.
The house feels awkward now, empty, like putting on someone else’s shoes by accident. It is strange to watch what Nat described to me in an email as “this painful task of dismantling 99% of a life's record of existence.”
I am reminded of Rutger Hauer’s final soliloquy from Blade Runner:
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
As someone who suffers occasionally from severe anxiety, and whose panic attacks, though infrequent, are usually triggered by a sense of losing or forgetting something, I’ve thought about having that last phrase tattooed on my arm.
The difference in the house is quite visually striking, though. I sent Besha photos of Brian’s handiwork and her response was: Holy shit.
Adah’s response was the same, verbatim, but minus the expletive, because my sister works with children all day every day. She assembled a before-and-after that really drives it home:
Adah mentioned that she had always seen the state of this house as an extension of our mother’s mental health issues. She’d thought about sharing the before-and-after pic in her own social media, but worried about not wanting to speak ill publicly of our departed mother.
“Our mom was a genius and widely beloved,” I told her, not that she needed reminding. “Also she was an unhappy person and kind of insane as a mom.”
Both of these things can be true at the same time. I believe in remembering people for the flawed, complex, beautiful, tragic people they truly were. And, boy howdy, but our mother was all of those things.
I found I had another emotional reaction to the emptied house, once the literal dust had a few hours to settle. It was a very gentle sensation of freedom, of something opening up. This whole ordeal has borne the feeling, at times, of being extruded feet first through a sausage mill. Suddenly, it all felt perceptibly, almost physically, lighter.
I tell myself we are keeping, or finding new homes for, the best parts of my mother’s life. The parts worth remembering.
I went down to the barn to check idly on Brian’s progress, and ask him about something. I saw he had pulled out all of the still-usable furniture, and put it out by the side of the road. As he and I were talking, two women, evidently mother and daughter, pulled up in a station wagon, got out, and started inspecting my former rocking chair. The broad smile on the mother’s face, as she picked up the rocking chair to load it into the back of her car, is something I will treasure for a long time.
“I’m glad that rocking chair is going to a good home,” I called after her. “We’ve had it for a long time. Use it in good health!”
“Thank you! We will!” she assured me, before she and her daughter got back in the car, and drove off.
Earlier today, one of the Ladies, Sandy, came over to take away several boxes of Mom’s costume patterns and design notes. She mentioned that her husband had snagged the rocking horse for another couple they know in the Colonial reenacting community who have a 16 month old child. That also pleased me to hear.
Later on, I noticed that the high chair was gone, too. I trust it also will live on to faithfully introduce some other toddler(s) to the joys of solid food.
Meanwhile, another of the Ladies, Alena, volunteered last Friday to find homes for the remaining clothing history books, which, even after the open house, still took up a full six by three foot bookcase.
“The Colonial Trade Fair is this weekend in Dover,” Alena said. “I’ll have a table at the fair all weekend. If you want, I can just put out boxes of your mother’s books, and people can take what they want. I promise you, they will disappear. Folks will eat them up.”
Eat them up, they did. On Monday, Alena texted me a photo of what was left. It wasn’t much. It warms my heart to know that Mom’s library of clothing history books have mostly found their way by the dozens into the hands of people who will appreciate having them.
The third Lady, Colleen, came over the day before yesterday to pick up the spinning wheel, which a mutual friend of hers and our mother’s had obtained from us as a birthday gift to Colleen.
“Does it have a name?” Colleen asked me, as we carried it out to her car. “Your mother had a habit of naming things.”
Right. This you’re telling a man whose pickup truck has the full style and title of Leto II, of the House Atreides, God-Emperor of Arrakis and the Known Universe. Where do you think I got it from?
“I don’t know,” I told her, “If Mom had ever given that spinning wheel a name, she took it to her grave.”
“Then I will call it Sharon,” Colleen said proudly. “We have spinning get-togethers, you know. Wait ‘til I tell everyone. They’ll all want a turn spinning on it.”
Stop, Colleen. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
If you’re reading this, friend, I send you my love. More tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, to the last syllable of recorded time, or until this job is done… whichever comes first.