Purging

In 24 days we will be leaving for parts unknown. Forever.

I am a sentimental person. So getting ready to purge my home of things I can't take with me is difficult.

The trivet hanging on the wall next to the kitchen window was a Christmas gift to my mother in 1965 from Winifred Sal a member of the Women's Guild at Haven Reformed Church in Hamilton. Mrs. Sal was also one of my Catechism teachers. The print hanging on my living room wall above Mom's recliner is one Mom had in her guest room in their last apartment. There are creamers in my creamer collection that were given to me as gifts from special people.... the list goes on.

But there is a limit to my sentimentality and after trying to eliminate some of my "treasurers" I realized my memories are better than my possessions.

I had a set of Mom's china which was given to Mom by my aunt when she and Dad were married. Mom kept the set in the cupboard above the washer and dryer in our kitchen. Every Thanksgiving she would take it out, wash the dust off it and use it for our Thanksgiving meal. I think I used it a total of four times before I gave it to my niece. Mom's silver-plate, (next best silverware) along with my sister Donna's dishes, went to our granddaughter for her first apartment. My sister has the sterling.

In the past seven years my sisters and I have lost our parents and a sister. The three of us have cleaned, purged and set aside many, many mementos. And slowly, slowly we have decided what is   important to keep and what we could let go. It wasn't always easy.

My younger sister and I held a garage sale after our older sister passed away. We sold a lot of Donna's things along with some of Mom's possession. There was a red glass oil lamp that Mom would use as a centerpiece on the kitchen table from Thanksgiving through the Christmas holiday. My younger sister and I had purchased it for Mom from the local Variety Store in Hamilton when we were quite young. I think it might have been a birthday present. As we watched the new owner walk down the driveway with Mom's oil lamp, my sister said softly to me, "Goodbye Mom's oil lamp." Neither one of us cried, but I think we both wanted to.

The thing is, no one else can share our memories. That lamp could sit on my kitchen table, or my sisters mantle and we could tell our children, "That was Grandma's lamp. We bought it for her from the Variety Store in Hamilton when we were little." The kids would say, "That's nice Mom." But it would not hold the same memories it held for us. One would have to have been there to hear the screen door at the Variety Store creak open and slam shut. One would have to have been there to hear the floorboards squeak as you walked across the store. One would have to have been there to feel the excitement as the lamp was lifted from the display window and placed in a box to take home. One would have had to seen our kitchen table with the lamp glowing in the darkness after the dishes were done and we had all retired to the living room to watch television. Otherwise it is simply "Grandma's lamp, that Mom and her sister bought for her as a birthday present."   It is the memories and not the thing itself that holds sentimentality.

And I am well aware that our memories are not always ours to keep. Our mother's memories faded long before her body gave way to age.

So it has come time to purge our home of "stuff."

King and I are finally taking the plunge and moving into our 19-foot (from hitch to bumper) travel trailer. We will be leaving the beginning of November. Of course we will be back next summer. King is not ready to give up golfing with our sons. But it is looking as if -- at least for the next year or two -- we will be living year-round in our trailer.

One day into my purge and I've already donated a box full of craft supplies, purses, clothes and shoes; I've ruthlessly dumped stuff into the dumpster, and boxed up a few, small treasures. My goal is to pare it all down to be able to fit everything into a closet-sized storage unit. If the kids want any of the furniture, they may have it. I'm pretty sure the rest will be set out by the road for anyone with a pickup truck to take home.

I may sound as though I have this all figured out and am ready to commit, but I must confess, there are days when I wonder if, instead, I should be committed. While I read a lot of blogs about people who travel full-time and live in their $65,000 travel trailers, that isn't exactly what King and I are doing. As usual we are "flying by the seat of our pants," as Mom would have said. (Meaning we have no hard and fast plans at all). But to be honest, King and I have tried doing what is the norm. We have tried to be the normal, all-American, apple-pie, money in the bank, save for retirement family. We were miserable failures.

After 40-some years of semi-normalcy, it is time for a little adventure. Are we ready? There is no such thing as ready. There is only now. And now seems pretty right.