What's left

Part of what's left

Saw mom yesterday and I asked her how she was.

"I'm having a breakdown, actually."

"Why's that?"

"I'm starting to realize this is my home."

She was near tears, her eyes deep, wet pools. She looked beaten-down and deathly worried.

I'd been upstairs in her old room loading a cart and taking stuff down to the car. This is the third major downsizing since we shut down her AA condo a year and a half ago. It's work, work, work. We have two storage units now full at U-Haul, and someday we'll have to sort that out and get rid of more. As it was, I left a whole bunch of stuff for the place to sort out, throw away, give away or sell.

I got help last weekend from Sister S and Brother J -- we spent almost a full day moving the big stuff out with a rented truck, and still there was a lot. Some of the choices were easy -- save the coats, the framed family pictures, some of the dishes and glassware, which can go to FF. But what about the teak elephants? The fancy decorative bowls? The beautiful vases? I couldn't take it all. Saving it, storing it, moving it just pushes it down to the next generation. So sorry, kids.

I wish you could live on two planes, parallel tracks, where time given to certain things came out of some reserve, so that you didn't lose any on the main line. But that's feeling sorry for myself.

Church today, then up to A-town, for Julie's mom's 90th birthday. To call it a "party" is to misunderstand my mother-in-law.