We all laugh at death – we do.
When watching horror movies
or playing video games – the
greater the body count
the better we feel.
***
As long as it’s not ours. As long as
Death stays over there – where
it’s safe.
***
Never getting too close. Never
breathing its fetid breath our way, then
we’re good.
***
We’re given a thumbs up to survive.
To continue doing and having all sorts
Of things. Ever collecting cars and rings and
paintings done by that guy with a
cigarette and a penchant for drips and streaks.
***
Death be gone, our unspoken mantra.
Our prayer when we can’t sleep at night.
A few words muttered as a funeral
procession passes us on the freeway.
***
Yellow stickers announcing what everyone
already knows – dead man walking.
***
We all cry at death too. When it brushes too
close, and swipes a loved one. Reaching into
our otherwise pleasant lives and rips the
fucking scab right off.
***
Then it’s mean. Then it’s unforgivable.
That shadowy figure with a scythe. The intent
to harm when we were minding our own
business; playing ball, making love, putting
up Christmas lights.
***
Taken as an afterthought. A notation in
a book whose ancient pages include
every fucking person, good or bad that ever
lived and yet – we think we’ll be different.
He’ll pass us by.
***
We need to relax. Lose the bling.
Sell the cars – the ones up on blocks and
not driven since 1999 – let them go. Clean
the cupboards, empty the garage and
give to Goodwill all the clothes that we’ll
never wear again and we know it.
***
It’s what we hold onto and know we’ll miss that
makes us grieve. The parting. The time spent without
that grind us down until we replace them with
something new to make us whole again –
but they never do.
Let it all go.
We spent a week clearing out my mother’s house and then had to leave, back to California and the life we were more comfortable with.
But we weren’t done. Not with the cleaning, not with the thinking or grieving. Thirty-odd bags of things to be thrown away or donated and we weren’t finished. What did all that stuff mean to my mother? Why did she hold onto all of it?
We all need knives to cut a roast, a potato, or a head of lettuce. But thirty-six of them?
We all need containers to store food that we don’t finish; waste not want not. But over a hundred pieces filled two drawers. Lids that matched no bottoms and bottoms that had last been used in 1968.
There were business cards from electricians who went out of business in the 80s. Notepads with notes scribbled on top dated 1991, a reminder to mail some bills that had been paid 30 years earlier.
She held onto things for the same reasons we hold onto things – we might need them again. We usually don’t, but we don’t know that when we toss it in the drawer. When we tuck the knife in with all the others, who knows when it might come in handy.
Things are not people; they are not memories; they are not happy or sad. But they have a story. Some only a few words, others much longer. And it’s the story we hold onto because it has value.
Maybe on July 6th, 1988 for about three hours. Or May 17th, a Saturday when we went to a nephew’s wedding and danced. So, we hold onto the little figurine given as a gift and put it away with the others – only we never give it a second look.
As we cleaned each room, each cabinet and drawer, her memories became mine as I held them in my hands and remembered the day in 1971 when I first used it. Remembered the night in 1969 when I broke it and here it remains taped back together and put into a box.
So much stuff. So many memories. Bits of wood and metal. Plastic and plaster figurines lining a shelf. No idea where they came from or why they sat there for 50 years collecting dust – but there they are. Easy enough to put it into a bag and toss it into the trash, but no, she held onto them.
We all do this, not just my mom. We all collect things because things remind us of who we are what we did and how far we’ve come from some indefinite moment in the past when we started keeping track of such things.
The Swedish call it, The Art of Death Cleaning. Sounds awful. Like what happens at a crime scene after the cops are finished.
But it’s not. It’s what happens when we confront our legacy of stuff and assess if any of it has any real meaning or if they are all little placeholders for our lives.
That postcard is really August 5th, 1973, in Miami Beach. Wonderful time.
The coffee cup, never used, is March 11th, 1966, a gift from a neighbor after we moved into our home.
Each item has a story and those stories fill the chapters in our book of life.
But do they?
Death Cleaning is about letting go. The Buddhists have been saying this for over two thousand years. Maybe it’s time we listened.
Stuff is stuff and will always only be stuff. It won’t ever be the joy we felt or the sorrow we endured. It’s a thing standing in for a memory of a moment we never want to let go of. But we have to.
But not all things, just most. The painting your dad gave you on your 18th birthday – looks good right where it is. Leave it there.
The teddy bear grandma gave you – your very first. Keep it on your dresser, it’s okay.
But the poorly rendered porcelain figure of Lincoln; the 13 nutcrackers tied together with string and the box of 10,000 buttons that remained unopened since you bought it at a yard sale in 1981 – it’s time they all went away.
We laugh at death because it scares us and laughing makes us feel less afraid. We surround ourselves with memories as a way of shielding ourselves as we get older, keeping the inevitable as far from us as we can.
And it seems to work as we walk through the house and touch an old painting, stare at a faded photograph of Mom and Dad, and otherwise use these items as a talisman to keep the dark forces at bay.
But it’s us doing all the work and not the things. It’s us deciding to keep going, to be happy, to not give up – not the unopened can of Boston Baked Beans Dad brought home from a business trip in 1958. They’re not magical.
We are.