We three sisters have pretty much gone through Mom’s house and sorted things into piles and stacks; we keep finding things I call “landmines,” that have some emotional or sentimental value.

For instance, I found myself crying over a blackened skillet today. Also, a boxful of old photos and cards yielded a Father’s Day card I sent to Pop in about 1967, the year before he died. I was staying in Grand Junction with my godparents while he was building my playhouse.

Re-connecting with my childhood, after not seeing these objects that represent specific events in so long, is proving to be a pretty… fraught process. It’s not so much that Mom is dead, but that much of my past has died, too. I was expecting to grieve for my mom, but thought I was “over” my childhood.

Not so much over the childhood, however.

Anyway, I’ve got a couple of boxes to pack yet and some loads to run in the dishwasher. Man, Mom never threw anything out, no matter how beat up or broken or half-melted, as long as she could find another purpose for it. My niece Holly came over today and was quite happy to claim some classic old kitchen implements and a beautiful Hamilton Beach mixer that’s probably older than I am. It was a little too heavy for Mom to deal with in her later years, but Holly will use it to make wonderful, wonderful things.
She’s a great cook and also a creative one.

Gotta run, I’ve got laundry on the line and it’s about to get dark.