Good Housekeeping

How do you compress 70 years of homemaking into one room?  That is the question that I've been asking myself all week.  My 90 year old grandmother (please don't tell her that I told you her age--she'd kill me) has decided that she can no longer live alone and wants to move into my mom's house.  My mom, aunt and I are here now trying to help her get her house ready for selling and moving, but it's tough.  I can see why people wait for relatives to die, before going through this process.  For one, everything in this house has a memory.  The blankets, the books, the clothes, the knick knacks, the plates, even the scraps of paper and mass market pamphlets--everything.  The other problem arises from the fact that my grandmother is of the generation that saved, reused, recycled--hoarded-- everything.  If it still had some life in it, it got used.  To you or I it might look like trash, but to her, someone can get some use out of it.  Add to that someone who is very thoughtful, but forgetful, so she buys cards to send, or picks up a toy to give, but then forgets where she put it, and so buys something else.... On top of that there is the mail... OH THE MAIL...  I think I might be in some circle of hell.  There are endless piles of mail that need to be open, sorted, and anything with personal information in it needs to be shredded.  I have been opening mail for two days and there is still mail.  Did you know that the VFWW, the Diabetes council, and many of the feed the hungry programs send money in their mailers?  Today alone I have made over $5 in money just from mailers.   And I don't mean to suggest she's a hoarder, but she's been housekeeping for at least 60 years, living in the same house for 12, and there was a long stretch of time when she was the sole caregiver for my grandfather who suffered from Alzheimers. 
My grandmother is a trooper.  My mother is relentlessly trashing things and my grandmother has tried her hardest to stay out of the way.  I know it is hard on her.  We are throwing away, and boxing up her life.   It's hard on me and it's not my stuff.  I know we are doing the right thing, but every so often I think that there has to be an easier way.  But I don't think there is.  We only have a week to spend here, I have to go back to my family (and then China), and my mom and aunt can't take any more time off work to come back.  It has to be done this way.  But I know it hurts.  I can tell by my grandmother's sad eyes as she watches the bags fill up.  It hurts, but I don't know of any other way. 

The Past is the Past

Lately I've become obsessed (OBSESSED) with my past. In my spare time (and not spare time) I've been going around and around in my head about people I've known and I've recently become convinced that I was an evil witch. I was completely self absorbed, didn't really listen and didn't really pay attention. I hope that I wasn't snotty or mean, but I bet I was. Personally, I think this is facebook's fault. All of these random people from my past keep popping up and I'm curious what impression I left on them. Of course they won't tell me oh yeah, you were the biggest SNOT that I knew, but I wish they would (or maybe I don't). So I never do ask, or rather I rarely ask, what do you remember about me. But I am curious. What DO people remember about me? Do they think "Oh yeah, that black chick that sat in the back" or maybe I was the mean kid or the smelly kid, and I just don't know it. Do I want to know? Why can't I just leave the past in the past?