Legacy.

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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.