One Last Walkthrough

We took a final tour of Mom and Dad's house weekend before last. It was a "take it if you want it day" because anything left at the end of the day is going in the estate sale. This is what life comes down to I guess. You can't take it with you so what were once treasured possessions has now become "stuff." A lot of the items though have become treasured possessions in other homes, thus being saved from "stuff" status. I thought this might be a difficult day, but it wasn't. I got to spend the day with my family and that overwhelmingly beat out any sad memories that came my way. I suppose in a few years I'll be gone and all my possessions will turn to "stuff" unless my kids or someone else in the family decides to rescue them to remain treasured for another cycle and so on. I think eventually all the "stuff" in the world ends up in some old barn somewhere and stays there until it gets sold in an everything must go yard sale and some of the "stuff" becomes treasured possessions again. They have a show about this on TV now, it's called "Antiques Roadshow".

It's remarkable the way my family gets along. Really it is. I've heard stories, just recently, about other families trying to divide up the "stuff" in the estate and they can't do it without threatening to sue each other. That's just crazy. I mean, not one item of all the stuff I "had to have" could in any way replace one more conversation with my mom or dad. I'd sue for the chance to do that again, but not for stuff, give me a break. It's the memories we want to hold onto anyway, not the item itself really.

What's funny though is out of all the "stuff" we have gone through (and there is a lot of it) we've only really struggled over one thing. We divided the cutlery, the furniture, books, dishes, kitchen supplies, appliances, tools, dolls, even mom's paintings with nary a disagreement among us. In fact almost every item requested was preceded by, "well, if no one else wants *fill in random item here* then I think I'd like to have it." Eventually my brother kind of got the giggles and said I think we can dispense with that and just say, "I'd like *item*" and we'll go from there. The only thing that we never could get together on was dad's airplanes. It was hilarious. We'd get them out and just stare at them. We'd go through long reasonable discussions about how we should divide them up, we'd all say yes that sounds like the right thing to do, and then we'd move on to something else and they would remain unresolved. We just couldn't stay focused on the issue. It's been this way since August. We finally faced the issue during this last walkthrough. Let's just get it done we said. Ok, we all agreed.

It took a little over 2 hours.

It's all dad's fault. He didn't make enough. Think about it this way. When we went through the house taking down mom's paintings and dividing them up, everybody that wanted one got one. Or two. Any disputes, (paintings that were desired by two or more people) we drew names and that was that. Everyone was happy and it only took a few minutes. The planes however, ugh, there were only 5 or so. And only 3 that were wire planes handmade by dad. But, there were 8 or 9 of us that wanted one. What was really funny was how we danced around each other trying to be polite but at the same time saying, "I want that one!" That's why it took so long to get this done. We did get it done and I'll post a picture in a day or two, if I can remember to take my camera to the storage unit (yes I pay for additional space to keep MY "stuff") and take a picture of my plane. Not only did we get it done, we still like each other. That's the best part.

So here's the lesson. Listen up now. If you've got yourself a hobby, (mine happens to be woodworking) and you're going to make things that people will want, especially family, you better make enough to go around. Dad failed to realize, you see, that one day his 6 kids would have 19 more, and those 19 would get married, and then they would have kids.........He should have made 50 planes or so, then everybody could have had one. Mom was the smart one, lots of paintings, she was thinking ahead there. Then again, dad's planes will be much more rare since there are fewer of them and that will make them worth a lot more when they finally make it on "Antiques Roadshow."

That's all for now, I'm "stuffed".....