Clothes, Clothes, and More Clothes

I have been resisting cleaning out my closets.  I think I have too many clothes, too much stuff, and I need to donate to Goodwill.  Some of it just doesn't fit anymore; other articles are out of style.  But mostly since I have retired, I don't have the need for some of the clothes that are hanging there.  I am more of a jeans type of girl, and I like tops to go with them.  The dressier items I could wear to church, but I have so many 'teaching' outfits and no teaching to do. But I have put it off.  Why?   What if I need something that is hanging there?  What if I find myself looking for a tan sweater and realize that I gave it away, then I feel bad?  Well, that sounded like a lame excuse, because I could just pick out something else to wear.  Duh! 

What I am getting to is this.  I thought Gary and I had a lot of clothes.  Yesterday my perception changed greatly.

We worked on the clothes at his folks' house.  Sandy, Megan, Gary, and I started around 9:30-10:00 a.m. and began moving clothes to the bed in the front room.  Megan and I removed the hangars and started to make piles - some ready for bags, some for Karen to look at later, some that we wanted to keep, some went into the living room for one of us to take home.  A pile started building for Mike's things, and Gary tried on a few sports coats. I removed Lions pins from lapels and checked pockets for leftover items, adding them to a growing pile of little pamphlets picked up at funeral homes and programs from weddings.

Hilary and the kids arrived to help, then we stopped for lunch around noon.  Soon after that Karen stopped by after work, and the emptying of closets and drawers continued.

When all was finished, we had plastic bags piled in the living room, a bag of size medium clothes to take to Mom in the retirement home, a bag in our car plus several suits and sports coats for Gary to try on again, a bag for Sandy, a bag for Karen, a bag to keep for Mike, several items for Clay's mom, and a stack of Christmas sweatshirts to keep.  The girls took some Grandma sweatshirts too.  We also have two bags of wire hangers to give to Goodwill.

The plan is to fill the Escape with bags on Monday evening for me to take to Lafayette on Tuesday and drop off at Goodwill or Salvation Army.  Then on Tuesday Karen will load up her Jeep with more bags and take them to Logansport.

Parting with some of the clothes was difficult.  There was a vest that Agnes always wore with a tan blouse and jeans, especially when she went to the fair.  The black lace dress with the white lace overlay long jacket was a special memory from when Leo was District 25A Governor in Lions.  They were quite the stunning couple with her in black and white and him in his white dinner jacket and black pants.  That dress went home with Sandy.  There was a World Beef Expo jacket with her name on it and one with his also.   We kept those.   There were many jackets that Agnes wore for meetings and events, a red one with black pants,  a yellow and black plaid.  There was a black sweater with an attached white collar and cuffs that she liked to wear for the layered look.  As Karen and Sandy sifted through the items, often I would hear, "I remember this one" or "Didn't Mom look nice in this?" 

But the thing that struck me the most as the amount of clothes! Oh my!  I thought Gary and I had so many clothes---but we really don't!  I know I have sifted through them, sorted, purged, given bags to Goodwill, which has been a good thing.  Maybe the generation that Leo and Agnes grew up in didn't want to part with items because, just in case, they might need them again.  I imagine Agnes could go right to a specific closet and find that black and white dress she wore to match Leo's white dinner jacket.  Maybe it was sentimental for them too.  The Lions events were a big part of their lives and they really enjoyed socializing, traveling, and the friendships.  It would be hard to part with so many of the clothes associated with those events as well as family trips and memories, like the World Beef Expo, the Medaryville Potato Fest, and trips to see Mike and family.

One other thing that hit me was this: with six of us working, it took all day to sort carry clothes from upstairs to downstairs, pull things off the hangars, sort, and bag.  Thinking of that process with my mom's clothes (and many of Dad's clothes are still in the closets also) is overwhelming.  I hope Megan and Hilary will be there to help also.  It will be a long process!

So many clothes.  So many memories.