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On Saying Good Bye

Over the last two weeks I have found myself deep in the work of sorting, separating and disbursing the various belongings of my mother.

Disassembling a collection of some nine large wooden crates of her belongings hidden away in the deep recesses of an ancient warehouse building, the pieces of her life have tumbled out into the sunlight before me, one crate at a time.

Emotions running from delight to despair slipping in and out of my consciousness from moment to moment as I uncover the objects, books, and letters of a life now moved on.

Amused and amazed by turn, I carefully unwrapped each piece of what mattered to her, trying to decipher its meaning, and determine its fate. The bright hand made quilts of my grandmother, the boxes of fabrics, linens and lace of generations gone before me. Tiny teasets for the doll house… A set of wooden book ends from the Philippines… hundreds and hundreds of books… Each individual piece a part of the whole. Each photograph a story in itself.

In the end, the letters, photos and journals outweighed even the finest china and antique furniture, most of which were given away or sent to auction. The old tattered teddy bear of her youth and mine, and the cloth china girl doll, though frayed and worn almost beyond recognition, made their way home with me. A patch of bright velvet cloth, a notebook of childish writing. A tiny ceramic mouse family, and a silver baby spoon.

After the ceremony, bringing her home to her parents at the family plot, a small box of ashes all that was left of her tiny frame; we walked the shoreline and gentle slopes of the land she had loved so much. This place,, which had belonged to her father and passed from our hands so many years before. The old dog graveyard still standing in its overgrown ivy and lillies of the valley peaking up and spreading in an ever widening swath across the hillside…

The ocean will reclaim the shoreline walk, and the boathouse too, it seems certain as the high tide line rises now to surround the path and building… It was good to see it all one last time, and to imagine her there, in the eternal spirit garden of their mutual creation, beyond the reach of time and fortune, wind and water.

In my mind’s eye I can see them all seated there, at the table in the window, looking out to the sea. I hear their voices rise and fall, talking and laughing as they reminisce over lives now passed, now relegated to memory and the stuff of dream.

I am glad she is home again at last.

Jamaica Plain Gazette In Memorium Article for Suzy

Image of same:
Jamaica Plain Gazette Memorium for Suzy

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