Out with the old & embracing it, too

Be honest: have you ever spit-shined a child’s face?

I knew I wasn’t alone.

We’re human … and in my case, possibly yours too … female. We like to scrub up and wash down. We like to clean and polish. We wash and fold and tidy and straighten and organize. We like to tie up loose ends.

And that’s the dilemma.

Sometimes there’s a fine line between doing what you know needs done — the cleaning out and tidying up — and feeling as though you’re altering life as it should be.

That’s when we must remember …

We’re discarding. NOT disregarding.

Yesterday the gang gathered at my grandma’s house on her birthday.

The above photo was taken exactly one year ago. The babies are little boys. The little boys are older, wilder little boys. And the girls are taller and wiser and gigglier.

The only difference?

Grandma wasn’t present this year.

The happiness comes from the fact that we know she’s in heaven waiting on the rest of us. She’s in a better place this year, and so are we. Time tends to turn sharp absence into dull ache. And perhaps that’s why we determined it was prime time to do what needs doing.

And so we did … at least partially.

When there are two children, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren who live and breathe a woman, and they know her not simply by the way she looks, but also by the placement of each cusion on her couch, each forget-me-not in her china cabinet and each Bible in the basket on her counter … it’s difficult to do the discarding.

The place is as much the woman as the woman herself.

And that’s when we force ourselves to remember … discarding is not disregarding. In fact, discarding is one of the most reverent actions we could take. Every item holds a memory, a link to another, a conversation starter. Each newspaper clipping … each handwritten note … each crystal bud vase has meaning. 

The things connect us all in ways we never imagined.  

And then realization hits.

It’s ok to let go of the things that made a woman. Because those things gave birth to events that burned into memories that are shared by one generation and passed on to the next.

It’s not about the things in our lives, it’s about what we did with those things that

inspired others …

and made a difference …

and touched a heart in some small way.

Sometimes the greatest inheritance is as simple as the stainless steel measuring spoons that banged against a cupboard door when it was opened by a work-roughened hand … or the aluminum scoop that dipped ice cream into a bowl for spit-shined children who laughed while Grandma petitioned for The Lawrence Welk Show and Grandpa demanded the Solid Gold dancers.

Nothing is as precious as recollection and sharing yours with others.

Discarding is not disregarding.

It’s turning over a new leaf thanks to the strength of the plant on which it grew.