Day 307 The Perfect Mom Project

"Mom, you cannot keep all of this stuff we do not want to have to sort through it all again someday!" We will honestly only want to see things that remind us of you and Dad" Ashleigh said this to me as we spent the day sorting out the lives of generations. There were marriage certificates from 1889 and 1928. Picture upon picture of relatives I knew and relatives I did not know. Hundreds of photos of my Mom, my Aunt and my Grandparents and fabric, tablecloths, even the curly toed shoes that my Mom had bought to go with her Sari years ago.

 I can understand Ashleigh not wanting to have 18 boxes worth of other lives to go through, because it was not an easy task. There were moments though when the girls and I would laugh and there were also the moments when I would cry. Remembering the past is always bittersweet, wishing you could go back and have a "do over". When you are young, you do not realize that there is no going back, there is no way to visit with the loved ones you put off seeing, after they die. There is no way to let them know how much you love them and appreciate them once they are gone. All you can do is use the past to help educate the future.

There are still residual items strewn about my living room, but the majority of the work is behind us. The items that I have set aside for my cousins are here, there are so many pictures of their Mom and her life that they should have and I still need to talk with them about splitting pieces from our grandparents that I have here with them if they are interested. I also have to find a place for the pieces I have decided to keep, and still downstairs in my basement sits the picture board from my Mom's memorial service (over a year ago) covered in pictures. My next task will be putting all of these pictures (including the ones from the picture board) and memories into albums. I am certain that my children would appreciate that. It is time to face the future and let go of the past. It sounds so easy, yet I know that until the giant mess my Dad has created is sorted out I will continue to have one foot platted firmly in the pasts doorway.