The thing I found when I opened the first tub is the only dress I ever
liked in my entire life. Pink with a Peter Pan collar—just like my mother always
dressed me in. Size 4T. Embroidered on the front are 4 small chefs – the two on
the top are spilling food on the two below. I remember liking the faces on the
lower ones, clearly expressing their surprise (and dismay).
I carefully take the dress out of the gigantic zippered plastic bag I had
used for safe storage. The bag is filled with tatted doilies, crocheted table
runners, quilts – hours and hours of women’s handiwork. The women of my family.
The Grandmothers of my tribe.
As I take the dress out my nose is hit with the cool dank smell of
mildew. I turn the dress this way and that – letting memories wash over me. I
am flooded with little girl memories of long ago.
Before I put the dress back in the bag I take my phone out of my
pocket and snap a quick picture. Then I reinsert the dress, re-zip and lift the
entire bag, carefully dropping it into a heavy black plastic garbage bag. I
pull it to the out into the weak sunlight to the curb. Gone...
The garage is poorly lit. Natural light from a cloudy day is filtering
through the open double door. The structure is more like a cave than a garage.
The back end is dirt and dirt covers the top in a low mound. It is filthy here
as well as damp. Cobwebs are delicately woven between the old stonewalls and
random objects that have been left here through the years: a rusty old exercise
bike, a green fertilizer spreader, and parts of an almost unrecognizable electric
foot bath.
Seven portable air conditioners are resting all around the floor on 2
by 4s, looking like tombstones in the faded light. When I first entered the
garage I thought the floor was made of dirt but now as my eyes have adjusted I
see it is concrete. My memory of the concrete floor comes back to me. I vaguely
remember it on another damp and cloudy day when I left my eight rubber tubs
here ten years ago.
The tubs are packed with sentimental items that belonged to my mother
and her family dating back to the 1800s when my grandfather and grandmother’s
families arrived in Kansas from Switzerland. I never heard any stories about
how they ended up in Neuchatel, Kansas or why they left their homes? Those
stories of my history, of my life, are lost forever. My mother ended up with
all these objects – things I do not know about, filled with memories that are
not mine.
In the second tub are lots of books. I had put some of them in zip
lock bags while others had been haphazardly left in the tub. All are ruined.
Without emotions I fill another black plastic bag and drag it to the curb.
I open the 3rd tub and begin sorting through glassware. I recognize
some of the hand painted flowers on plates my mother had hanging in our kitchen
when I was growing up. I know nothing about the pink or purple candy dishes,
the cut glass vase, or the crystal dessert or sherbet dishes. I state at them
blankly with only the memory that my mother had loved them.
I still feel the pain of my mother dying too young. She was only 62
and the cancer spread quickly through her body. I was 27 and not ready to be
orphaned, lacking both life skills and the maturity to be in the world without
her.
From my birth until her death I was convinced I had ruined her life.
Then after she died I began to realize that she had chosen her life. She had
chosen her time to die – to die when we were all out of the hospital room,
alone – a way out of her disappointing and guilt-ridden life. I realized it had
nothing to do with me.
When she was dying I was angry, scared and lost. The life choices I
made after her death reflected my confusion for decades. When my father hastily
re-married he did not want my brother, sister or me to have anything of our
mother’s. We insisted with an urgency we didn’t understand and took whatever he
would allow of my mother’s family heirlooms.
I moved the many treasures around for years, from house to house,
through relationship after relationship – yearning for her. If I had them out
in view she would not be as gone. The items weighed me down, grounding me in
the past but they did not make me happy.
Out of all the tubs I pick a milk glass swan as my memento. I remember
it being around when I was growing up. I do not know how it made it into my
parent’s house, or if it came from Switzerland. I do not care. I like it.
Now, at 66, I let it all go. I unburden myself of my mother’s “things”
that fill these tubs with forgotten memories and untold stories. I tote garbage
bags to the curb, shut the door and do not look back.
