Grandfather has moved in with us.  The grandfather clock, that is.  I grew up with this clock, its slow audible tick and faithful dinging on the hour.  It inhabited the space in our front hallway and its tone was easily distinguishable from the other chiming clocks in the house – and we had a few.  Friends sleeping over were constantly awoken by the myriad bells going off on the quarter, half and full hour while family members easily slept through them all.

Sunday was the day for winding clocks.  Dad would make his rounds, getting out the unique key for each clock and methodically turning it until it was fully wound.  The grandfather clock kept impeccable time until his death.  After that, the clock just wasn’t the same.  They say a clock doesn’t run the same when someone else winds it.  This one was no exception.  No one else had Dad’s touch.

Even as a youngster, I was aware that this clock had a special history.  There were vague stories about its original lead weights being melted down for bullets during the Revolutionary War.  I was never sure if it was fact or just a good story.  But it was indeed born out by a history of the clock, written by my great uncle, and recently unearthed by a distant cousin.  He also related how the “new” canister weights, filled with sand and scrap iron were unable to travel a long enough distance to run the clock for a full 7 days.  So Uncle Henry cut holes in the base of the clock to allow them to travel right down to the floor.  I’m sure that the Antiques Roadshow folks would shudder at his ingenuity, but he reports that he achieved his desired result and the clock then ran for a full week.

The clock was believed to have been purchased by Uncle Henry’s mother around 1872, and therefore was not considered a family heirloom.  But by this time I can’t help but consider it anything else.  It’s simple lines and lack of ornateness add to its appeal and are a testament to its ancient lineage.

On its travels from Mom’s house to mine, I had a local clockmaker take out the works and get the clock running again.  He did a fine job, and once more it is ticking, chiming on the hour and keeping good time.  It stands out as the only antique in a very modern house, but I rather like it that way.  And time will tell if it adapts to my own winding technique.

They said the house had “good bones.”  In realtor speak that meant that despite the tired cosmetics and the updates that it needed, the house had an appealing structure and was basically sound.  Walking through the house after we’d emptied it of all the contents, I could finally see it.

Devoid of all Mom’s furniture and belongings, my footsteps echoed as I walked across the wooden floors.  Cupboards and doors creaked more loudly than usual as I peered inside to make sure nothing was left behind.  Rooms looked larger than before.  The character became more apparent.

It took on the look of a “new” house.  Rather than feeling nostalgic about the years Mom had spent there and the good family times we shared in that space, I felt like I was seeing it through the eyes of the buyer.  I understood how they could get excited about moving in.  I could see the potential it held, and the opportunities they had for transforming it into their own unique space.

It made me feel good about turning the house over to someone who will give it new life.  Transformations are fine with me, all the better if it renews the spirit of the house.

It’s time to move on.  My daughter texted me as I was leaving the house for the last time.  Pick a flower as you leave for a final memory, she said.  So I did.  I left the house empty, but brought a little bit of Mom home with me.   One final time.

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.