My parents died in their sixties. Both deaths were sudden, first my father then, three years later, my mother. They had no time to sort or designate or arrange their belongings.  Even though they moved a few times and some consolidation occurred, they still seemed to acquire new things. After my mother's death I was stunned to see how little superfluous stuff there was. Closets were neat and roomy, not crammed and overflowing  like my own. Drawers were not cluttered with rubber bands, old keys, dead batteries, expired coupons, yellowing recipe clippings, saved fortunes from Chinese take out dinners.   

I was grateful to my mother for not burdening me with sorting too much of her past, but I did regret not finding some hidden box filled with family secrets and answers to questions I dared not ask more than once. Only a love poem my father wrote to my mother while he was in Chicago , the year of my birth (I never knew he had been to Chicago ) turned up in her dresser along with a photo of a woman in a bridal gown, I later learned from my aunt, was taken at my mother's first marriage. I had seen that photo before but was told it was my mother's dead sister. She and my father eloped.  

My father had been an inveterate accumulator of bargain things, gadgets, job lot odds and ends. I remember dozens of gallon jars of hot peppers and tomato sauce, consumed and distributed.  This was no longer evident in their last apartment. Indeed, there were loose photos, precious old ones I didn't remember seeing before; some souvenirs, a jar of pennies and a few kindergarten clay pieces from the grandchildren. When all was distributed there was very little left. I was disappointed not to find the Ginza knife, the vegetable slicer my father bought from an early T.V. advertisement.   

After the tag sale of furniture and fixtures, some bric-a-brac and jewelry(mabé pearl earrings--not my taste at the time, but I regret having parted with because my earlobes have stretched enough to support them), I was sorry that I didn’t keep more of the more quirky items that reminded me of both their flamboyant and conventional taste. A French bronze(?) statue on a faux marble base and a silver plated Italianate urn, perfect for an umbrella stand, were a couple of things that became conversation pieces in my home, before they assumed a position as comfortable as an adopted pet.  

In my childhood there were marvelous things that disappeared with each new style of decor. The pink mirror etched with clouds that hung above the blond-lacquered curved credenza. Those rich wine-colored fuzzy velvet overstuffed club chairs and the deep green couch we could only sit on for special occasions. And what ever happened to my set of Nancy Drew Mysteries, my home-made crystal radio set, my drawing book of all A's from Mr. Kirk's class in 10th grade?  

As I get closer to the age at which each parent died, I become my father, struggling against the shut down of each vital organ until he said, "I can't make it," and let go. And my mother who, with the blood bursting through her brain, reminded me of a gift she had set aside for my son's birthday.  I am burdened with thoughts of being prepared and a pressing need to clean up.  

When I look around the house in which I have lived for more than thirty years without a move or divorce,  I am overwhelmed with the sheer quantity of things I have kept. Years of accumulated debris, indecipherable parts of obscure things, boxes of old grade school papers and small toys belonging to children who have no room for their histories in their current sparse beginnings and who refuse the furniture from their childhood rooms in favor of the latest from the Workbench or Crate & Barrel.  Their rooms remained relics too long.   

The round oak table from the Salvation Army store for $20, the rush seated ladder back chairs, remnants from my first year of marriage, and every subsequent acquisition remains. No redecorating for me. Short of dynamiting the place there is little hope of a significant clean-up. I imagine my children, after my funeral, going through each room. From the basement, where things stored have not been looked at since they were stuffed into corners with the false idea that someday they may be retrieved, find a place once again among the living items in the upper floors where we keep our collections (tag, auction and antique sales purchases since the kids left--replacing our losses perhaps), to the attic turned studio where the years are marked by a large inventory of unsold art work.  

The collections (Mexican dance masks, Roseville pottery, toy soldiers, some ivory pieces) are personal choices and may not be things my children have any interest in keeping in spite of their increase in value (for which we congratulate ourselves for our foresight).  We have stopped acquiring and have tried to begin divesting. However, books still accumulate. I seem to be the only one addicted to Amazon.com.  Neither child has the time nor inclination to fawn over each carefully selected tome. As an artist, there are ample shelves of art books and with the studio on the top floor filled with work from student days, reference materials, props, slides, photos, journals, left over announcements, old diaries, postcards, drawings and paintings--the flood tide rises and I am drowning.  

What will the family think of me after the sadness of their loss, the romanticizing of my life and its meaning to them, when they plod through the debris left to sort and dispense. Guilt will be displaced with anger, disappointment, embarrassment over the morass of my leavings, and resentment over the  burden imposed on them. Dynamite--or let the widows of Zorba pluck each last tube of paint, dust-laden serving dish, mismatched silver-plated sugar spoon, until the plaster of the walls and the hard oak of the floor boards sigh and relax.  

Oh, and there is the storage on the computer. Neglected clean-up there as well. Old e-mail, saved letters, false starts. What do I want left for them see--failed poems, half written stories, books to read, plans unrealized for paintings, for projects?  

Delaying the job gives me more time to think about what I can part with.  Should I leave little and imagine the children's admiration for a frugal and ordered life, rather than the chaos to burden their already complicated lives?  Respect, I felt for the organization and prudence my mother had, that I knew to be there but only really understood after her death. I did, though, regret there hadn't been more to decipher who my parents really were.  

The truth is I am not my mother and my flaws and obsessive bits of detritus are hard to let go of.  A determination to shed results in a carton less than half full with an old sweater, a pair of sneakers (still good enough for garden work), a cracked green ware vase (just a hair of a crack) and I feel the pre-pangs of loss with each. Closets filled with clothing (even some of my mother’s who died 15 years ago--into which I have grown) I have not worn in years and will probably never wear again, (now qualified as vintage) take on a special meaning, a character making them indispensable, a Proustian nostalgia. I’m glad I still have my mother’s old eyeglasses. My aging vision now matches hers and those rhinestone bespeckled narrow horn rimmed are back in style. I recreate her in myself as I don some of the vestiges of her life and my loss is less.  

Perhaps leaving so much behind will let my family see a life of starts and promises, an appreciation of the attention and meaning each thing has had, how full the life was--not so much of things, but what those things represent--care, attention, affection, difficulties, trials and memories. A life left too soon to order the disarray.  Perhaps, in the burden of dismantling, they will know me better and be willing to excuse my excesses.

Author's Biography

I am a painter and writer living on Long Island and in a hideaway in northern Connecticut. My latest paintings are of Havana, Cuba, where I traveled recently. 

My work is in the collection of such places as the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, Albright Knox, Everson Museum and in many private and corporate collections. 

I have published poetry in Chiron Review, Black Bear Blueline and other small press magazines. I was art and contributing editor for FRIGATE (www.frigatezine.com), a sleeping on-line publication where some of my art and essays have appeared.

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