Life After Death

So last night was the first time I have been back to my Grandma's house since she passed away nearly a year ago. Was very weird being there.

I have SO many thoughts.

I was told to go through what is left of her things. Take anything you want. I didn't really want anything.

1) To me the items were still Grandma's. Her paintings and quilts. Endless pictures in frames. Her figurines and dishes. Her jewelry and books. I felt like a vulture. Picking over the remnants determining what had value and what didn't. Just doesn't seem fair.

2) A knick knack will not keep her close. A punch bowl will not help me remember the smell of her perfume. If it falls and smashes into tiny bits, will I forget how much she loved Holstein cows? Not likely. Her memory lives on in my mind and photo albums.

Don't get me wrong...I can appreciate that some are comforted by having these things. Nothing wrong with that. No judgement here.

But what do you do with the rest of the stuff. So much stuff.

I looked in all the closets, remembering her wearing certain outfits or necklaces. The kitchen...dishes and silverware reminding me of all the holidays.

Drawers and boxes filled with pictures. I've never seen so many pictures. All family. Son, daughters. All the grandkids and great grandkids. The years frozen in time.

Then we found her box of video tapes. I had no idea.

My sister and I playing our instruments, 1987. A snippet of news coverage from 1990....the anchor interviewed my sister who had won an essay contest when she was 13 or 14 years old.

I had no idea mom sent these tapes to her. That she kept them.

Wait a minute...why am I just now learning that she DID care? All these years of me thinking her unconcerned. I should have known from the piles of pictures she always had sitting out on every available surface.

Makes me sad to realize how little I really knew her. How similar we are.

She didn't need the trinkets either. She only needed the pictures.

The people in the pictures.