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From: <>
Subject: [GenChat-L] Packrat
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 17:26:05 EDT


I'm terrible to some people, but others are fascinated with my keepsakes.

My parents died within the last two years and my garage was and is still a
mess. My husband threatens to throw out stuff. We bicker back and forth.
But I could never bring myself to look at some of the articles, books,
calendars, anything as dad was always writing mom little letters on any piece
of paper he could get his hands on. I've kept all of those.

When mom and dad both died, I put together an album real quick to sit around
for everyone to look at to see little captions of things they said and did.
It was very consoling and I was glad to share their life with everyone else
who loved them too.

After mom died in June 1996, dad Feb 1997, I was so depressed, I had nobody to
visit anymore. My sisters and brother have all drifted apart. Holidays were
so tramatic for me. I tried to stay positive for my kids, but it was hard as
they would hear me crying from another room.

I went to a grievance class at St. Anthony's Hosp in St. Louis, Mo for while
and and finally one day it snapped. Everyone else in the group talked about
how they had been robbed or time with their loved ones. Young couples who had
wives that died of cancer, leaving small children, brain aneurysms, car
accidents, etc. Mom and dad were 87 and 88, and I realized that I had not
been robbed of all the years with them, and not only being a packrat, I'm a
camera fanatic and have lots of photos of them over the years. I stayed close
to home and spent most of the time around them. I have a lot of wonderful
memories.

Now that messy garage that I have tackled I'm putting all those little
lovenotes from dad in their photo album. It's awesome.

My kids will probably fight over it someday. I hope not.

I have terrible memories of putting mom and dad in the nursing home. My one
sister and I took care of them. I was the baby of the family and was raising
two children 8 and 11 at the time. But mom had alzheimers and dad had so
many strokes, fallen and broke his hip, hip replacement, it was hard to pick
them up anymore. Plus mom became so verbally abusive and mean. I know the
little dumplin couldn't help it, but it still hurts when your mother cusses
you out like a sailor. I cried many a day and nights. The other sisters and
brothers were never around, but amazingly when mom and dad were in the home,
the next weekend, my brother came with a Uhaul and made a killing, the next
weekend my sister came with a horse trailer and made her kill. Another sister
had pretty much wiped out what she wanted. I sat on the back step as they all
moved every special thing that mom and dad cherished so much. I didn't want
anything as I'm not into those sort of material things. The valuables that I
wanted was all the ol pictures and no one wanted any of those. I got the best
deal, as I have all the smiles of mom and dad and me growing up, holding my
kids on baptisms, first communions, etc.

The greed gets you nowhere as my brother who had to take the bedroom sets and
furniture's house caught on fire. Maybe God does work in mysterious ways.

My mother wrote in diaries for years and my one sister took all the books mom
has and split them up with another sister knows how obsessed I am with
genealogy and have offered to put them in binders for all of us so I can get
dates of weddings, deaths, etc. Nope. My mother was close with my oldes
daughter and had her a diary and scrapbooks, and I begged for those books. My
sister gave me one. I guess that's a start.

The moral of my story is don't throw anything away. Someday it is of so much
value to someone.

Have a great weekend and thanks for letting me share,

Sharon

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