Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock
Sunday, February 26, 2006. I can throw out Mom’s last stuff now. I’ve procrastinated long enough. One good thing about being a procrastinator is all the things that you get done. You on-timers don’t understand this; I have a sneaking feeling you’re not as efficient as your bare desk and up-to-date organizers indicate. We put-offers are successful, albeit indirectly. …
Procrastinators run late because we’re always doing other things. None of us thinks: The movie’s at 1:15 and it’s 10 minutes away and because it’s 12:45 we can stare into space for 20 minutes. We see 30 minutes to finish whatever we’re up to now. … OK, 20 minutes to spare time for the drive. … OK, there’s 15 minutes of trailers so it’s 35 minutes we really have, especially if we dress while feeding the cat, and brush our teeth while on the pot so we don’t have to go again after buying the ticket but before entering the theater.
The above paragraph helped me avoid writing about Mom being gone 15 months.
It’s very late, but I finished reorganizing two four-drawer filing cabinets, which had to be done before hitting Mom’s last things. The file drawers have nothing to do with Mom.
These are the broken momentos of Mom.
Everything else has been given to family or charity. There are heirlooms — some silver, some vital photos — but that is not this category. We consigned lamps and vases. One curio sold, then the thrift store went out of business. In a couple of years, they’ll be “retro” again and they’ll sell. I’ll store them somewhere out of sight until then. It’s the other bits. They’re repaired trinkets: a tiny one-armed porcelain ballerina from a music box (the other arm is stuck on), a chipped Hummel child, patched decorative plates from France and Germany.
They’re broken because they were Mom’s favorites and she dropped them: Sometimes while dusting and sometimes from just holding them to admire then startled by the phone or something. When Mom said old age made her clumsy, I’d pick up a piece that Dad had glued for her, and he’s been gone since ’85. My brother’s worked on a few. I’ve re-glued many of the same pieces, broken in different spots.
You can’t even sell these wrecks at a garage sale, though my repairs are barely noticeable.
Why not throw them out? Because Mom touched these, often. They meant something to her, often representing who gave them to her or other history (obscure to me), never their monetary value, which dropped to zero on the first bounce.
For 15 months, they’ve covered a table. There was no sense in storing broken objects.
I use Mom’s sturdy ashtrays. A pillar candle sits in a four-inch one — colored glass melted onto copper — in a bathroom. A brass one is my desk’s designated incense burner. Dad brought it from India, where he served in the Army for part of World War II. Mom would carry it from room to room, as it had a handle.
Smoking killed her, but the ashtrays make me smile, maybe because they spur my memories. The dainty china plates with patchworks of cracks? Those are just pathetic. -30-
