Weeding Out

Mom, my brother, and one of my sisters, just got back from a trip to western North Carolina. They went to visit my Aunt Ellie who lives in a retirement community down there. When I say “visit”, I mean they went there to help my aunt weed through some of her stuff in anticipation of her moving into a smaller, assisted living facility “on campus”.

Mom had been after Ellie for quite some time to get in gear and start going through her things and get it weeded out, but the conversations all seemed to end in frustration in that my aunt would either not make a commitment or would not have the discussion to begin with. I would like to say that Mom just rolled with it, but that’s not Moms style.

This is one of those things that I can see both sides of. I think Mom is absolutely right that Ellie needs to whittle down on stuff if she’s going to fit into a smaller place. It’s not like Ellie’s a hoarder with a house filled with crap- like my house, but there is a lot more stuff there than an apartment could handle.

On the other hand, all of those things are things that she’s had for years. It would be hard for me to part with my things that hold memories- memories that others might not see. Plus, it would be an added incentive for me to hang onto the stuff if I knew it was driving one of my family members crazy. Yeah, ultimately it would have to be dealt with, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be my problem. Just dig a bigger hole, drop me in, and bulldoze my stuff over me. What’s the big deal?

But Ellie finally agreed to the idea that Mom and whoever else, should come down and begin to help her go through her stuff. Maybe Ellie finally came around to Mom’s way of thinking, but whatever reason, figurative feet were now wedged in the figurative door, so the three of them headed down to begin the assault.

While they were down there, I kept getting texts. Because my phone is about as cheap as you can get, when a text is received, it isn’t always accompanied by a name- just a strange, unrecognizable phone number. But I knew the texts were from one of the members of the Swat Team because the first text I got announced their safe arrival at the airport and the second one I got announced their safe arrival at a barbecue restaurant.

This was clearly a thinly disguised attempt to provoke me with the lifelong taunt of “look what we’re doing and you’re not”- which, by the way, has been duly recorded in my mental Book of Slights- and will be held there until I am able to tip the scales of justice back in my favor.

Anyway, after a while, I began to get texts from another strange number, and these were usually accompanied by a photo- the size of which my cheap phone provider estimated to cost the equivalent of trying to shove the Empire State Building through the airwaves. This translated into my minutes getting sucked up faster than I would have sucked up the aforementioned barbecue- which I didn’t get to have.

Not only that, but at least some of these texts turned out to be group texts, so when someone else did a “reply all” to the original text, I not only ended up with yet another strange phone number, but it ended up sucking up even more astronomical amounts of my prepaid time.

It wouldn’t have been quite as bad if I could actually have seen what the photos were taken of, but my phone is so bad, it was like looking at a postage stamp through a scratchy microscope.

Today though, I finally managed to extract a few of the photos buried deep within my high tech phone.

This is a photo is of a lantern that my grandfather had made. From what I understand, Ellie says it’s stuck in place with no way to get it off. I would have sent a text suggesting that my sister try cutting through the wires with a hack saw, but I was running low on minutes:

Here’s another photo, this time of some swan figurines that I thought I was told were salt shakers. Now that I can see the photo more clearly, I can see that they are not salt shakers. So, either I misunderstood or I was lied to:

And when I originally saw this photo below, I understood it to be of different varieties of Carolina hot sauce, which I guess, in a way, it is:

I’m not quite sure what memories these things in this last photo hold for Ellie- and I’m probably better off not knowing. But I’m wondering as I write this if this is somehow connected with Ellie finally agreeing, after all these years, that, “Yes, maybe it really would be a good idea for all you people to come down and start going through all of my stuff.” ...And have a nice tall glass of lemonade while you're here.

I wonder.

Also, I kind of like those swans.