It’s hard to move on from the memories of a lifetime
They won’t let me go into the house to go to the bathroom while we’re sorting belongings in the garage. The theory is I’d just cry and mess things up, and after all, it isn’t my house any more.
So I have to keep going to Starbucks to use the bathroom. The baristas are beginning to look at me suspiciously. So far they haven’t changed the bathroom code though.
I keep coming back to my old home because I can’t leave the memories behind. The actual move wasn’t so hard. Of course, there was the incident when the beloved green porch swing, built by my Dad, was divided into sections and loaded into my grandson’s truck, while the outraged toddler who has been my upstairs neighbor sobbed, “Make them put it back.”
Furniture and bags made the trip with no trouble. It’s only 10 miles after all. The problem is that memories have a way of swelling up. They’re piled to the ceiling, and there’s no box big enough to carry them in.
There are dozens of items that go back to my husband’s and my days in San Francisco and Taiwan and Fort Campbell. As the years go by, recall might dim, but when you hold a memento in your hand, it’s suddenly as if that beloved person or time was alive again.
There are a lot of broken things. “These are no good. We can throw them away, right, Mom?” Oh no! See that little broken cannon? It looks like a child’s toy but it goes back to the days when we arrived at the Presidio of San Francisco from Castle Air Force Base (now closed) in May 1956. The first night in our new quarters was the first time Stephen slept through the night. I liked that a lot. He was six weeks old. Now he’s doing all the lifting and organizing for this move.
It was there at Fort Point that Lt. Wilhelm discovered and excavated two Rodman cannons that had been buried to protect them from capture during the Mexican American War. He was presented with the model as a token of his achievement. Even though the post is now deactivated, the cannons are still at the Lombard Street gate.
There are only about 30 boxes left and my son has devised a method for keeping the memories from escaping. How this ordinarily works is he brings a box of papers, raises the lid just an inch so I can peer in. “Just papers, Mom. These can all go, right?” he says. My role is to confirm, yes, they’re just papers and they can go.
Instead “Noooooo,” I screech, running after him. One box is full of obituaries.
“We can certainly throw these away,” he says hopefully.
“Oh no. We can’t throw them away. Those people are all dead. What would they think? How would they feel?”
“Dead?” my son guesses. It’s an uphill battle.
They’re all still so important to me. The National Library of Medicine explains it this way: “For example, an older woman who possesses an art project her child made in elementary school may find that, over time, her attachment to the art project increases the more that she uses it as a cue to reminisce about her time as a young mother. “
Who wants to give that up? Can it lead to hoarding of things that are not useful? Sure, but what’s that compared to the chance to be young forever?
The real estate brochure says my condo, now up for sale, is “desirable.” The very idea. “Perfect” would be a better word. It was perfect in sparing me from the pain of downsizing from my first home and I hope it will be perfect for someone else now. Dr. Spock, in his book that was the Bible for all of us young parents, wrote, “Trust Yourself. You know more than you think.” I certainly hope so.
The house where we used to live in Bangkok is a Starbucks now. I wrote to Starbucks corporate and they’re looking for a picture for me. We just have to take the changes one memory at the time. I know I’ll get through this when some wonderful person moves into the old home, and I can stop using the bathroom at Starbucks. The baristas will be glad too.
Where to Find Dorothy in November
Nov. 6: Coffee Chat and Change the World. (online) Reservations at https://swimmingupstreamradioshow.com
Nov. 14: Christmas book signing in Dupont. Get details at Dorothy@itsnevertoolate.com or 360-995-6005
Catch Dorothy’s podcast, Swimming Upstream Radio Show, at https://swimmingupstreamradioshow.com
Contact Dorothy by phone at 800-548-9264 or via email at Dorothy@swimmingupstreamradioshow.com.
