I have spent most of January cleaning out my grandmothers house.
My beloved Nana, my mothers’ mother, central to all of my
favorite memories all through my life, lived a full, incredible, inspirational
90 years before breathing her last in October of last year.
When I was home in November I knew I would be leaving
Liberia and wasn’t sure yet what I would be doing next, so I offered to come
back and take care of the lifetime of stuff that needed going through and
sorting and claiming and tossing, to be ready to put the place on the market. I hate Minnesota in January (rightfully so… it’s
-20 and falling outside right now) but I am never around for family things or
to help out so the timing felt right; I’m not a particularly sentimental person
and I’m also very much a minimalist, so getting rid of stuff didn’t overwhelm
me at all. It was a puzzle to be solved,
with the goal to have everything done by the end of January. And here on January 29, the Salvation Army
truck came and took away the last of the things I couldn’t find a home for. May they be loved and used and
enjoyed, as they were by my Nana, and her mama and nana before her.
And I find unexpected tears in my eyes at the end of an era.
~~~
Nana was an incredible woman. She married her high school sweetheart,
raised three kids, and her husband unexpectedly died while they were still
young. She then put herself through
college and got a teaching degree, and became a career woman, pouring herself
into little ones in early elementary school. She loved to travel, going to Florida or Palm
Springs or Arizona almost every year for spring break or longer after she
retired a few decades ago.
I grew up about three hours away from Nana, but every family
birthday, holiday, or long weekend would find us packing into the car and
heading to Nanas house in the winter, or the Lake in the summer (and nana would
always be there too). She always had
candy or treats for us, our favorite cereals in the cupboard, made the best egg
salad, loved having all her kids and grandkids together, and always fretted we’d
run out of food. (We never came anywhere
close to running out of food).
When I moved away and saw less of her, she always made sure
I knew how much she loved me, and loved seeing me when I was able to come
home. I began to miss Christmases and
birthdays and holidays as my life path took me further and further away, but
whenever I came home, she couldn’t wait to sit down and ask me about my life,
support me in any decisions I made, and was often more excited than I was about
some of the big changes and moves and ideas and dreams. One Christmas I surprised her (and most of the
family), only telling my mom I was coming home from wherever I was in Africa,
and walked in on her washing dishes in the kitchen. She was so surprised, and so happy. One of the millions of beautiful memories I
have of my Nana.
For the last several years, every time I said goodbye I knew
it might be the last time. And then it
was.
~~~
When you say goodbye and a lifetime is reduced to making
decisions about what to keep, what to sell, and what to toss, it gets you
thinking about legacy. In the piles and
rooms and boxes of stuff that needed going through, we found zillions of
photos; many of them photos of great-aunts and great-uncles, great- and
great-great grandparents, and other ancestors long gone and nearly forgotten. It
reminds me of a conversation I had over beers at the beach a few months ago,
when a colleague brought up the fact that most people cannot name their
grandfathers’ grandfather, and indeed, none of us around the table could do
so. Three generations, and
forgotten. Our life decisions feel ginormous sometimes,
but our actual existence is but a breath on the wind as time marches
onward. And as someone who likely won’t
have kids and grandkids to remember me, I’m asking myself often, what is the
legacy I’m leaving?
But also the practical fact: you don’t take anything with
you when you die. And someone will have
to sort through it all, and honestly? The vast majority of the stuff that seemed
so important and useful and needed will end up either being donated to a thrift
store or tossed directly in the dumpster.
I’m already a minimalist, as I live out of suitcases, but if I wasn’t,
this process would certainly put me on that bandwagon.
~~~
So it’s the end, of a lifetime and season and era; my last
night staying in Nana’s empty home, where so many Christmas mornings were met
with exclamations of “Santa found us!” and birthday cakes were consumed and Thanksgiving
dinners eaten (pass the mashed potatoes please) and shopping trips planned and
memories made and cherished and treasured.
Thank you, Nana. I’ll
love you forever.
