This week's treasures......

I've never seen my mother's wedding dress. So when I opened an old trunk this week and poked through some royal blue tissue paper.....I was shocked to discover it.

It's beautiful....ivory silk.....with delicate embroidery.....and satin roses. The dress has no size...no label... it was custom made for my mom. She must have looked both sexy and angelic in it. The silk hugging her small body....the ivory making her glow like an angel in a holy card.

As I folded the dress back into the trunk....I felt a quick stab to the heart....I asked my mom about her dress when I was engaged.......but my mom simply said, "Well, you won't fit into it," and that was that. I've seen a thousand pictures of myself in photo albums this week....I was simply an average sized girl...but my mom was always angry that I wasn't short and petite like she was.....so she could share some of her treasured outfits and perhaps even her wedding gown.
For now....it will go into an archival box with tissue....until some family member ...some very small family member may need it.

It was issued in 1944....and one look at the handle made me realize this wasn't an ordinary knife...but something dad was issued during the war. Sturdy....rugged after all these years....unlike the wedding dress...lol....this knife fits like a glove in my hand.

This nativity set was my version of Xmas action figures. I gasped when I opened a box marked "casseroles" and found it under a bunch of old crispy newspapers. Every December I begged my parents to bring out the nativity set early in December.

I always told them it was because I wanted to set up the manger....but I actually adored playing with all the figures....camels...cows...sheep....a friendly dog, angels ....and a baby in a straw manager. For thirty days....I invented stories....and had my manager friends followed the script...traveling far distances over my grandmother's living room sofa and her cocktail table. And boy did you have to be a creative story teller....a kneeling woman.....men carrying sheep on their shoulders....somber looking angels and a couple of funky gazed guys carrying presents. Oh I wish I would have written those short adventure stories down!

This album cover was so cool....I chucked it into the "take back home" box....I don't care what kind of music the album has....the picture is so cool.....that's all I need.

I was a dancing fool as a kid.....tap and ballet. I was never much of a ballerina....not swan-like enough...and my dance teacher leveled with me at an early age....no way in hell would I ever make it professionally. Oh she said I had some talent....but I was too short. "You have to be at least 5'8"".....and have long legs. I would stare at my legs and wish them to grow ..but they didn't.....and I ended my ballet career pretty early in life.....but I continued to tap dance because all that pounding around in loud heels was fun.......and you just needed a nice.... shuffle ball change......which my stuffy little 5'4" legs could handle quite nicely.

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The Decider is going Crazy.......

Yesterday I was convinced I was either going crazy or was going to have my first ever panic attack.

My nerves felt like marching ants ....my head felt fuzzy.....and every cell in my body was irritated. I wanted to stop working.....wanted to get in the car and go home....wanted to do anything but sift piece by piece through my parent's things. Every item I looked at or touched seemed to increase the anxiety and irritation.

I actually set the timer on my phone.....you will work thirty minutes before retreating from all this stuff. So I would work thirty minutes then run outside or sit down and watch TV for a few minutes then set the timer and tackle the next section or box.

I am no slouch.....I can work hard and work for many hours....but the volume of my parent's stuff is defeating me.

My son is up here this time with me.....and I noticed he's not affected. He basically does what I tell him....moves boxes....detrashes....carries things around .....and doesn't seemed overwhelmed at all. So why do I feel like a giant sandpaper is filing me down?

My hub nailed it down on the phone....."You're the decider....the only decider."

Exactly.

No matter if I'm working solo or with a family member.....I'm the decider....I'm the only child...the only survivor of my parents.....so I'm the one who says......save....trash.....bring home....donate.

I am the decider for every fork, video tape, magazine, hat, coat, bowl, rubber band, and bottle of dish detergent.

Everything.....and in house brimming......overflowing.....stuffed with things......making 10,000 decisions a day on everything....every minute....is short circuiting me.

And....there's not much relief........everything must be decided upon by September 1st....that's the deadline for when the estate sale people take over.....that's the day everything must be decided by......there's part of me....that wants to walk out tomorrow and lock and door and relate to the sales people....take all of it.....I'm finished with the stuff......but in boxes and odd corners....there are piece of my parents and grandparents and great grandparents....that I feel obliged to discover and touch and decide.

Last week....my clergyman told me that you lose different aspects of yourself when your family dies or leaves.....when you lose a child you lose your future.....when you lose a husband, lover, significant other....you lose the present.....and when you lose your parents....you lose the past.

If parts of my parents and my grandparents and my great grandparents go forward into the future and into my children's life.....then I've got to look in the boxes...and touch everything...........and be the decider. There is no way out.

It is one hell of a job.

Boxes already decided upon.

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My Father's Closet

I'm back home right now....but only for a few days.

I'll be heading back to Chicago to work on my parent's house again.

I'm going to try and put their house on the market in mid-July. The real estate agent I'm working with was blunt.....she said I have two options ....I could slowly sort and sell my parent's things and then put the house up for sale....or I could de-clutter and thin the closets... and place the house on the market by mid-July.

I choose the second option. I'm going to work my ass off painting, pulling up carpets to uncover the hardwood floors and doing minor repairs. I'll box up their things, store the stuff in the garage and once the house looks pretty....work on saving, selling or donating.

I'm not sure it's the right plan....but it's a plan....something I've been lacking.

Since I've de-trashed most of the living spaces....I decided to thin out my dad's closet first.

It took me two days.

Behind the shirts, the suits, the shoes.....dad had stored and sometimes hidden his treasures. For example, many of his shoes were stuffed with socks ....not empty socks....but socks full of nickels, dimes and pennies. Change for a rainy day.

Unusual camera lenses were in one shoebox....and in one back corner....a soft blanket protected an old concertina from my grandfather. Thick black trash bags protected caps and good hats from dust on the shelves.

I found my father's army discharge papers stuffed in a frail envelope.....and also a faded newspaper clipping. My dad was a survivor of the S.S. Leopoldville, a ship torpedoed off the coast of France on Christmas Eve during the war. The Leopoldville was a cruise ship commissioned to carry 1200 soldiers from England to France. Once hit, the Belgian crew took off in the life boats leaving the Americans behind to fend for themselves on the sinking ship.

800 soldiers died. My dad....one of the lucky and brave ones... jumped from the ship onto the deck of a rescue craft. Many men who tried that jump fell into the sea or were crushed between the two boats. The Navy hushed hushed the incident during the war because of the botched rescue attempt and the unsafe conditions on the cruise ship. Only in the last dozen years....have official stories come out about the death and destruction and this was one of the first newspaper articles that broke the story.

I also found things in the closet.... I couldn't box up and put in the garage....things I needed to take home...things I could never sell.

In a large old Stetson box ....I pulled out a hat and fell immediately in love. It was so small and dainty....how could dad fit into it? Was it meant for someone else? I put it on and played with the brim in the mirror. I could see myself wearing the hat in the fall with a leather jacket. I visualized myself taking a walk on a crisp autumn day in NYC....perhaps in Central Park with the leaves whipping by....I could see myself pull the brim down to protect myself from the chill. I am not a hat person.....so it's strange to fall in love with a man's soft hat....but here it is home with me.

I think it's an East Coast hat.

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On day two of closet work, I found a gun belt tapped shut in a box. My mouth fell open when I peered inside the box...not because I found a gun belt but because it confirmed a story was not myth but truth.

My dad told me he had ran away from home after high school and headed out to Arizona and California. My mom told me he worked at a dude ranch and had to wear a gun belt and guns to deal with cattle rustlers. I wasn't sure about the story and dad was rather tight lipped about the dude ranch part. One day mom showed me a pistol....it had a pearly handle and looked heavy. When I asked dad where he kept the gun....he said they weren't real.... it was a joke....and the gun was just a BB gun....a toy. So when I pulled out a real gun belt in heavy black leather with real bullets in the notches....I knew it was not a toy and was meant to hold real guns. Trouble is....no pistols in the box....which makes me wonder what happened to them.

Damn ....dad was skinny as a young guy.....this belt just fit.

.

And the last thing I took home.....a picture I dubbed "Cheesecake little Gina."

Never saw this picture before. I've seen one with me in this swimsuit holding a beach ball....but not this reclining little bathing beauty.

Someday when this is all past....I've got to find Gina and the cheesecake in me again.

Cheesecake Gina.

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