Empty Rooms filled with Memories

“All that had been used to make it a dwelling place, by my folks on back, by Grover and me… all the memories of all the lives that had made it and held it together, all would come apart and be gone as if it never was.”
---from Sold, a short story by Wendell Berry

The rooms were empty by the time I arrived. Except for a few heaps of trash here and there, and some stuff no one wanted, it was finished, done. The auction for the contents of my parents’ house was over. And there I stood with my sister-in-law, Joy, and my brother, Mark, who had witnessed the whole thing. Now they were exhausted, the auction (it was 107 degrees the day of the sale, forcing one of the auctioneers to the emergency room with heat exhaustion), had taken its toll on them, physically and emotionally. Moving slowly, almost painfully ambling from room to room, their eyes darting over every square foot of floor space, they searched as if still expecting to find something beautiful and worthy, something cherished that had been somehow overlooked.

But it was all gone. All that was left was empty rooms.

They looked at me with tears in their eyes like I had arrived at the ER a few moments too late and had just missed the passing of a loved one. Glancing out the back window where I used to chat with Mom on the porch swing about life, and dreams, and why mosquitoes like me so much, my eyes blurred as I choked out the words, “It looks so sad when it’s so empty.”

I then walked through each room alone, just the empty space and me. It was my way of bidding adieu to the home place. And in each room I took a mental picture. I could almost hear my imaginary camera clicking as I paused in each room. I stood in the informal dining area, and click, I captured a picture of our family gathered around the table laden with steak, baked potatoes, fried okra, and corn on the cob. We were singing “happy birthday” to one of us.

I glanced across the room and click, I was taking a Sunday afternoon snooze over there on the couch, the Sunday newspaper draped across my chest.

Then I was in the kitchen and click, there was Dad watching TV while Mom was brewing hot tea.

I walked through the den when click, I got a great shot of all of us at Christmas, exchanging gifts, laughing, and then, click, I got one last picture of my annual reading of the Christmas story. My brother is smiling as I read. He always did.

I tip-toed down the hallway and click, I caught a glimpse of Mom putting on make-up in her bathroom, then click again, and I was in my old room sleeping in my bed, back home for a visit.

In the dining room reserved for special occasions I clicked and saw us at Thanksgiving dinner, turkey and dressing piled high on our plates as we stand around the table, pausing to give thanks.

And so it was, I clicked my way through the house until I arrived back at the place I had left my brother and sister-in-law.

Tears again clouded my eyes, but not for empty rooms; I had just filled them with memories of what they always truly were: spaces where people gathered to be family. And I could carry the moments, the pictures, with me, tucked inside the canyons of my soul, waiting to be explored again for the first time--- a new time.

“I think I may come back tomorrow for one more look,” I said to my brother as we left. But I knew I wouldn’t, for there was no longer a need to return to the old place when I could always draw on the freshness of what it was and is in my heart.


Email David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.Davidbwhitlock.com

My stuff is not junk

“You’ll find you’ve brought too much stuff.”

The words were softly spoken---almost as if to himself--- by a retired Pastor, a resident of my parents’ retirement community. He seemed to know by observation and personal experience: we take too much stuff with us.

I take too much stuff with me most everywhere I go, even to the beach. “Let’s see, towels, sun screen, sun glasses, iPod, watch (do I need my watch?), keys, cell phone (do I really need my cell phone?), Kindle (can I even get service for it?), beach shoes---oh my goodness, I can’t carry all this stuff!”

Even when I flew to Oklahoma to help relocate my parents, I took tiny versions of larger stuff in my life: a miniature shaving kit, tooth paste and brush, hair brush, and compact case of contact lens solution. The fact is, I take too much stuff with me.

And that’s our problem: we want to take our stuff with us, even when we retire. And I suppose, even to our grave.

I heard the refrain again and again from other retirement home residents as they watched me breaking down the boxes from my parents’ move: “Downsizing is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Not looking up, I nodded in agreement.

My parents’ generation matured in a growth economy that tended to equate consumption with success and happiness. Growing up on the heels of a Depression era characterized by lack and want, the accumulation of stuff in times of prosperity equated with security. “Keep that stuff; don’t throw good stuff away; you never know when hard times may hit, and you or someone else may need it again.”

I have a friend whose grandmother built a large room and basement, almost the size of the original house. Why? So she could keep all her extra stuff in it. Then she moved and built a larger house that kept all her stuff. Now, her son has another house to keep her stuff, plus all of his stuff. What happens when they die? Call the auctioneer.

During breakfast at the retirement facility, I asked one dear couple what had been the hardest thing about moving. “Leaving our home--- our home of so many years, and departing with most all we had in it.”

My heart ached for her as I listened, sitting next to Dad, who was on his first day away from his home of 58 years, experiencing the same pain that lady expressed.

And I wanted to kick myself for asking the question.

It can be a disheartening situation. Dr.David J. Ekerdt, who directs the gerontology center at the University of Kansas, has extensively researched the matter of senior adults having to downsize. Based on his interviews with social workers, geriatricians, retirement community administrators and family members, Dr. Ekerdt has concluded that the sheer volume of objects in a typical household--- including the tremendous physical and mental stress involved in sorting out what’s essential and the psychological effects of parting with what’s not — can lead to what he calls a “paralysis that keeps seniors in place, even when the place isn’t the best place.” In other words, possessions become an obstacle that often keeps senior adults from better managing their health and well-being.

My brothers and I could no longer wait for Mom and Dad to direct us in what to keep and what Dr. Ekerdt calls “household disbandment,” that is, disposing of possessions. The house had sold, the moving van would soon be in the driveway, and the retirement facility would not wait forever.

It was painful.

We ferreted through photograph albums, newspaper clippings, clothes and more clothes---and more stuff, behind every nook and cranny, more, more, more.

And finally, exhausted, we fell back. But we had it on the truck.

I arrived back home with a mission: get rid of my extra stuff. I plowed through the overloaded mail box in my office, throwing away old journals, magazine subscriptions, newspapers, and the junk mail that was cluttering my life. I sighed with relief at my little accomplishment.

And then I arrived home. “The packages came in today,” Lori informed me. The packages included the boxes of stuff I couldn’t bear to see thrown away from Mom and Dad’s house. “It was a ‘package deal,’” I quipped, that included the pictures of my first haircut, my brother Mark throwing me the football, my brother Lowell in his 1963 Altus High School letter jacket, and my brother Dougie and me playing together.”

No, that’s not junk. Junk belongs to someone else.

So, I’m keeping my stuff…

At least for now…

Or until our kids can go through it…

Someday…

Somehow…

And decide what stuff they want.



Email David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.