Recognizing the “Keepers” others leave us

Last week I mentioned how we four siblings prepared for a recent garage sale. A couple years ago, Mom’s health necessitated a move from Kansas to being within eyesight of my house. What precious times we’ve shared. But, miles from here, her little rented house set, filled with her things.

Months ago, with Mom’s blessing, we siblings set a date to sort and sell contents for Mom, and so the house could be rented out to others.    

But, what do you sell, knowing it’s forever out of the family? What do you keep?

Some “keepers” are obvious, some not. The fate of a few items is determined by the impact of memories. 

In our enthusiasm to prepare for the sale, we brought things to the site that didn’t belong there. Like the bag with clothes, for instance, Paul had sent down as work clothes for me.

And, like my brother’s garage items that were to stay in my brother’s garage. We gave a few things an extra outing to and from town.    

Mom’s old buffet, along with its matching table, had deteriorated in her farmhouse basement after her carpenter brothers built her a new china cabinet. We moved them to storage years ago. Now it was time to carry those monsters to the sale, expecting an antique enthusiast would restore them. 

Instead, sentiment struck a granddaughter. We loaded them back onto the pickup, along with a modified, motorized bike a grandson insisted be spared.

Before long, my oldest brother rented a U-Haul to carry his family’s sentimental decisions.

As part of the distribution, we hauled my sister’s selections to a storage unit, using cell phones to confirm our actions.

Eventually we concluded the chairs in storage actually needed to go in the U-Haul, and the chairs left in the kitchen needed to go to storage.

After all garage and storage sale items were in place, we were down to the “family discussion” items we had purposefully kept placing on the kitchen counter and card tables. 

We knew the garage sale would scarcely change Mom’s bank account. However, Mom’s cherished “treasures” needed distributing.  

Who, for example, should get the “apple cookie jar” that for years held her freshly baked cookies, but especially ready for grandchildren’s visits, or the little bell nested in a wooden plaque on her kitchen wall that grandkids rang in teasing fun?

Whose living room corner would have the little red rocker we each sat in, or the large “Mom-made’ doll that occupied it until now?

Which table will show off Mom’s “company dishes”, and who will use her stainless steel “silverware” for Christmas guests in years to come? Who will keep the dime store butter dish, or what used to be “the good china”, or the jewelry box Dad gave Mom one Christmas? What about the kerosene lamp that lit our living areas before our rural area became “electrified”? And, how should we distribute our parents’ Bibles, the tangible evidence of the faith so important to us all?

Such “family treasures” become “family reminders” as generations come and go.

Today, preparing this column, we unexpectedly sit beside our silent precious mother whose heroic triumphs over an aging body are stepping aside, apparently soon closing her generation as she’s ushered to her eternal life ahead.

We don’t doubt for a moment the truth in my daughter’s calligraphy gift to Mom years ago: A godly grandmother passes unspeakable riches to future generations.

Indeed.