Then and Now

(My Mom and I watching the eclipse in August)

Then and now

“Then” was last month, when my sister and I went to my Mom’s house and stayed with her, and made her oatmeal with blueberries for breakfast, and yogurt with cottage cheese for lunch. It was her house, and she was here. She was with us and part of us.

But she got sicker, and suddenly she was no longer the healthiest hospice patient around, which is how her nurse had described her  just a few weeks before.  The tumor grew, and she wore down.  One Saturday evening last month she struggled to breathe, and then her breath slowed, then stopped.

Then became now.

Now, there is just us. My Mom is gone. But her house is still there, and her clothes, her Toby mugs, her Tea Leaf china. Also, her papers. So many papers. I opened a random drawer the other day, one I’d never opened before, and found progress reports from when I had swimming lessons in second grade.

This “now” is unknown and overwhelming.

In the week’s before my Mom’s death, both my sister and I stayed with her around the clock.  Nobody got much sleep.  In this month of December, which is supposed to be full of holiday cheer, I have been exhausted, both physically and emotionally.  My little family and I celebrated Christmas- but barely. People have asked me what we are going to do with my Mom’s house, with her things. “Nothing until January,” I tell them.

January is coming.  My sister and I agreed that we would take off the rest of December. But come next week, we will go back to my Mom’s house and start figuring out what to do with all she left behind.  She had such a hard time throwing things away. I think she feared that tossing a card or letter would mean that she didn’t love the person who sent it to her. She left stacks of Christmas cards from over the years, and all the sympathy cards from my Dad’s death in 2011.  She also cherished every gift anyone ever gave her. She had a five bedroom home, and it is full.  Keeping  all this was her way of proclaiming her love.  Now, in this “now,” my sister and I have to discern the best way to distribute everything that remains.  What do we do with her things?  How do we best honor her?

I am my mother’s daughter. It is easy for me to equate possession of objects with love, even though I know better. Would she feel unloved if I don’t keep all the things she kept?  This troubles me, even though I know I can’t do it. My home is small. But I am struggling with this now, and this morning I am missing “then.”  I do not want the responsibility of sifting through all her papers, all her stuff.  I do not want to think for even a moment that she would be hurt if I throw something away. What I want is for it to be her house again, with her in it. I want to bring her a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries. To go out and get her newspapers. To watch “Let’s Make a Deal” together.  To forget about the house and stuff. To just be with her again.