Thud!

I am not sure what was wrong with me today, but something was.

From the moment I was awake until now, at 10:00 p.m., I have felt emotionally drained.  Nothing is right.  I am tired.  I am cranky.  I just feel bad.

I don't want to clean out things any more. I just don't.  When I walked out of the house in Wooster on Friday, I felt like a weight had lifted.  We were done cleaning out.  The rest would be left to whoever Mark the Auctioneer put into the house to complete the clean out and sort and prepare for August 24's auction date.  I was done with it all.

I was even ok for a few days here at home.  We took some of the boxes containing the china I decided to keep, the dishes Gary wanted, and the crystal that Grandma had given me years ago that Mom would never let me have to the Quonset until we found a place for them.  Gary and Blaine moved the heavy chest of drawers that Greta and I used in the Little Brown House on 62 into Hilary's old bedroom for me to use for storage of my quilting stuff.  Bits and pieces of things were added to our kitchen or living room or found a new home with no problem.

Then I started cleaning out the girls' two bedrooms upstairs.  Again.  We had cleaned out Hilary's old room a couple of years ago, sorting, pitching, burning things that were no longer needed.  Megan's room contains the dresser and closet that I use, so I had purged them many times through the years and just this summer, cleaned off the bookshelves to take some to the Books In Stock store and to find places for a few I had brought back with me from Wooster.

But this time, I was delving into other areas.  The stacks of things on the futon, which, as I wrote about yesterday, contained many empty bags, crumpled up tissue paper, torn gifts bags, sales receipts that were quite dated.  But in Megan's room it was a different story.  The last time some of the things had been sorted was maybe....2004.  It was around the time she took the job at CP and moved to her own apartment.  She sorted and took things with her, but she also left a lot of things with the admonition of "Don't touch these!  Don't throw anything away! I want to save it all!"  Now she doesn't remember saying that; her dad and I do.  So I really haven't touched anything, especially in that southwest corner and along the west wall of the room.

So far I have found lots of yarn, actually too much yarn.  I have enough yarn for washcloths and scarves for a long time of knitting pleasure.  Then I found tons of fabric. Nothing like what we found in Mom's laundry area or the walk-in closet there, but enough that I have many projects to finish before I start something new.  Those things I can handle ok.  Really.

But what happens to all of the pictures I have found?  I pitched some of them.  Blurry photos.  Photos of students if I can't even remember their names.  Pictures of Student Council activities.  Many senior pictures that I had collected (after I read the notes on the backs, of course).  But what to do with the rest of them?  

Then there are all of the dolls and the stuffed animals.  What to do with them?  Some of them are Beanie Babies.  Some are Boyds Bears.  Some of the dolls are Cabbage Patch kids. Probably every one of them has a special significance, not to me perhaps, but to Megan and Hilary.  What to do with all of them?  Put them in tubs and store them.  Give them to Goodwill?  Find a donation center, like a hospital or an ambulance service who might need dolls or stuffed animals for young patients?

So why the 'Thud' in the title of this post?  Because when I came home this time, I just wanted to get back to a somewhat normal life again.  Yeah, I know.  What is 'normal' anyway?  But a normal type of existence where the focus is on us, on our family, on activities both at home and outside the home, cooking meals, weeding the garden, running the sweeper, buying some groceries.  maybe going to a movie, taking the kids somewhere fun....and what am I faced with?  Going through drawers and closets and bags and notebooks.  Again.  Not as bad as at Mom's.  But again.  Same process.

I know. It could be worse.  What if something had happened to one of us?  Or to one of the girls?  What if one of us were really ill right now?  What if we were destitute?  There are so many things that have not happened to us, that i should be ashamed of feeling blue just because I have to clean out some closets and drawers.  

So ok. Here is the real reason for the "Thud" today.  It hit me hard that both of my parents are dead.  They are dead.  They have died.  They are not coming back. Not only that, but both of Gary's parents are dead.  They are not coming back either. Neither of us have parents anymore.  They are gone.  I miss Leo and Agnes so much and it hurt to go to The Farm yesterday and today.  It hurt to walk in the house and hear nothing but silence.  To see things piled around on the tables and in the living room.  It smells empty.  And I told Gary today that the outside is beginning to look neglected.  Mowing has been sporadic lately because we haven't been home, and it looks like it hasn't been mowed consistently.  Big weeds were lining the exterior of the house.  Weeds are growing in our tomato plants.  There are no signs of life---because there is no life there.  It hurt my heart so much.  I miss them.

And even though my mom didn't call us, nor did she like it when I called her, and we didn't talk to her very often, she was still there in Wooster.  We know now that she was very sick which had caused her to act the way that she had for many years, but she was still my mother and my mother is gone.  During the five weeks that we have been at the house, cleaning out and sorting and stacking and pitching, I have missed my dad so much.  It is like I am grieving for him all over again.  I can feel him around me.  I can feel him squeeze my shoulder when they sag under the weight of  yet another drawer to sort through.  I can feel his smile when Landon asked for the drafting table and chair.  I look at Grandpa's table with Dad's flag from his casket sitting on it each and every time I pass through our living room.

Today it hurt. And it hurt so much that I sat on the edge of the bathtub with the bathroom door closed and sobbed for a long time.  My parents are dead.  My in-laws are dead.  They are gone.  They are never coming back.

I miss them.