The hard work was done.  Or more accurately, the hard physical work was done.  Mom’s house was empty except for the stack of photo albums.  Compared to the rest of the contents of the house, the amount was small.  But it represented a lot of mental and emotional effort.  My oldest sister, Betsy, had planned a final trip back home to help me with the house, so I drafted her to tackle this mountain of memories.

We decided to start with family history.  We had a wealth of old photos we wanted to preserve and share with all members of the family.  To me the natural approach was to marry them to our family tree, lending context and time-frame to this collection of relatives.  Here we struck gold.  My father’s side of the family had been heavily researched in years past, and a cousin has worked in more recent years to update it and computerize the records.  Within a short time, we had access to that family tree dating back to the 1500s on Ancestry.com.  On my mother’s side, we began creating her tree from our own records.  Soon we were in business with side-by-side laptops, churning away at scanning, documenting and saving photos then creating tree limbs and connecting people to photos.  How rewarding it was to see gaps filled, put names to faces and see our past come to life.  There was a sense of satisfaction in handling the old photos and know they were being preserved.  And we found some amazing old images.

We also found a few gems.  Mom’s college scrapbook mainly held mementos of the events in her collegiate life, but also a few self-revealing pieces.  Our favorite was the collection of newspaper articles, publicity shots and her personal letters home when she won a popularity contest that culminated in a ski trip to Sun Valley in 1940.  Dad’s bound volume of photos and letters documenting a trip with a college professor in 1936 was amazing in its detail.

Modern photos presented more of a challenge.  Compared to the old pictures we had mountains of photos, all carefully mounted, labeled and dated (well, mostly…) in sequential albums.  Not only was the sheer volume a challenge, but we were so easily side tracked.  “Oh I remember that.”  “Who is this?”  “Look at this one!” and peals of laughter punctuated our work.  The piles grew as we hunted to select representative photos of our family life.  More scanning, documenting and saving, ultimately to distribute to family members.

Four solid days of work and we only got as far as the birth of our youngest sister.  And three Rubbermaid tubs full of albums still await me.  I think I know who to enlist for the final onslaught.

I just hope my brother has as much fun with all the slides.

As long as Mom’s house was on the market, there was a semblance of continuity. It was still “her” house. While we wanted it to sell, until it did we had a reprieve. We didn’t have to deal with the contents. We didn’t have to face handling every single item in the house and determine its disposition.

Everyone knows about the stages of grief. This was about the stages of letting go. First there was the funeral. Formal, a fitting tribute, and surrounded by friends. It came so soon after death that a feeling of numbness was inevitable. Next came the task of dividing Mom’s treasures. Mom and Dad’s, really. Deciding who wanted what was congenial and healing and we knew they would be pleased that family heirlooms were staying in the family. And then the final task, clearing out the house. Sure, we had made decisions about the big pieces of furniture and major possessions but that left a lot of, well, stuff yet to be dealt with.

It was daunting. Mom and Dad were married for 51 years, and Mom lived another 17 years after Dad’s death. That’s a long time in which to accumulate things. Opening boxes, pulling out drawers, unearthing trunks, scanning shelves and peering in cupboards all revealed bits and pieces of the lives that Mom and Dad led.

It was a good reminder of who they were and what they did. It wasn’t about the later stages when heart disease and Alzheimers robbed them of their former vigor and wit. It was about the active and social lives they led. We found their classic old Schwann bicycles in the garage, which were brought to life when we unearthed a photo of them on the bikes at Canal Park. Seeing their wooden cross country skis brought back memories of family ski trips. By their later years they would ply the trails while we zoomed down the slopes. Mom’s golf clubs were a testament to all the years they spent on the golf course, and the many friendships they made in the process. The old canvas tent – I only remembers using it once. Camping wasn’t Mom’s thing. All the silver, china and crystal? A living memorial to the active and full social lives they led. Mom set a gracious table, and they entertained in style. Those pieces weren’t for show, they were used regularly. The bookshelves full of volumes of classics mixed in with modern fiction were evidence of Mom and Dad’s continuing pursuit of knowledge and active minds.

We absorbed as much as we could into our own homes. For the rest, we tried our best to find good homes for the many possessions. We preferred to gift them than sell. It just felt right.

It was a lot of work, but once we committed to the task we surprised ourselves by how quickly we finished. It felt odd, seeing the house empty, no longer filled with familiar things. No longer Mom and Dad’s home. The dining room table where we gathered so often was missing. The books on the shelves we’d peruse and borrow were gone. The bed we surrounded when Mom was slipping away from us was absent. It was just empty rooms.

We’d emptied the house of two lifetimes. Two beloved parents. Two people devoted to each other. They will live on in our memories. We don’t need a house full of possessions to preserve that love.

We just weren’t ready to do it right after the funeral.  We knew we’d have to divide up Mom’s worldly goods among us four children, but emotions were high and the loss was too recent to do it then.  There were plenty of other arrangements to make, practical matters to attend to, and a house to sell.  We put it off until later.

Nobody really wanted to face the task.  There was too much at risk, and family relationships at stake if it did not go well.  But with two siblings coming from far reaches of the country at the same time this summer, we all knew it was inevitable.

I mentally set aside three days for the task.  Being the family organizer, I set the meeting time for the first day at 9:00am with dire warnings not to be late.  “Do we really need to start so early?” my sister asked.  “How long do you think this will take?”  How I wanted to share in her optimism!  I generously allowed everyone an extra half hour in the morning, but we didn’t have any spare days.

We had family heirlooms handed down through multiple generations, and favorite items that meant a lot to each of us.  All of it was treasured, used and cared for lovingly by our parents.  And memories were wrapped around everything.  How ever could we respectfully divide these things among us?  But time is a great healer.  The tempers that flared in the aftermath of losing Mom had mellowed and been replaced by a generous spirit.  “I want” became “who would like this?” and “I think you should have it.”  Even the few items with the strongest contention were ultimately resolved gracefully.

While it was a herculean job, and the hours of identifying, hunting, sorting and deciding were tiring, we also managed to have fun.  We were easily sidetracked, lured off task by the items we discovered that led to stories, questions and often a lot of laughs.  There were things whose purpose totally escaped us.  We learned some new terms – nappie, compote, candlewick, fretted.  We delved into old books, and sifted through memorable record albums (yes, the old vinyl variety).  We played with the wind-up toys we’d given Mom over the years.

We did manage to get through all the main stuff.  And best of all, nearly everything of importance found a new home.  Just knowing that the family treasures were staying in the family made me happy.  My oldest sister walked away with her “take” in one shopping bag.  My brother will have to come back with a U-Haul.  A big one.  My kids will have some furniture to flesh out a new apartment, china and silver to remind them of Grandma’s love for entertaining.

Everyone is happy with their selections and we’re all still talking to each other.  Mom would be proud of us.