July 17, 2024
I have been busy looking in corners and clearing out items I no longer am using or no longer need or wish to keep—-a child’s guitar, a computer keyboard, canning jars—-and today I opened a cardboard box of sewing notions and fabric pieces of various sizes. In the box were the last two pages of a letter from my mother—inside this particular box because on the back side of the last page of her letter she had typed instructions on how to replace zippers.
Reading the letter, I can hear my mother’s voice again, chatting about the work she was doing in their garden in Oregon, the photo I had sent of my little son David, soon to be one year old, and the problems facing her mother-in-law (my grandmother) because my grandfather was developing dementia and needing more care. My grandparents lived faraway in Arkansas.
My mother wrote “I just hope that I die in a hurry while I still find the daily routine a challenge and a pleasure.”
I cannot stop the tears. She was sixty-one when she wrote those words. Twenty-two years later she would decline relatively quickly and die of congestive heart failure, surrounded by family who loved her. I held her hand. I closed her eyes.
I fold the letter carefully. I will put this scrap of letter into the blue box that holds the last of my mother’s papers.
Not everything is clutter.
Kristin Moyer
I am so grateful for the “clutter” my mother saved. Through it, I am able to revisit (and sometimes discover) moments of my family’s past that are hilarious, poignant, illuminating, heartbreaking. It is a rich tapestry.
My mother was a saver, too, and I am grateful. After her death, I found she had kept all the letters I ever wrote to her and my father, even bringing them to Virginia in her last move, from Oregon. I organized them chronologically and put them in ring binders–took four big binders to hold all of them. I hope my daughter keeps them.
Ha, ha, that’s brave of you! I was a letter-writer, too, and I have a big pile of them thanks to Mom. The few I looked at made me cringe. ! I also found a trove of them in my daughter’s things after her death. Apparently Grandma was culling and thought Catherine would appreciate them more than I would.
I am sure plenty of cringe-worthy things in my letters in those binders! but interesting, too, because I wrote about current events, sometimes. One of my cousins found letters from the Civil War in a trunk in the barn at my grandmother’s home–that was a treasure trove! My cousin (a librarian) transcribed them, annotated them, made copies of the original letters. She gave me a copy…and I should digitize it. How many people write letters any more? Emails and texts.
My mother kept all the letters I wrote from college, which were many since my parents would not let me call —- said long distance was too expensive. But I did not save her letters. When cleaning out the old house at Saranac Lake before it was torn down I found many letters written by Dick’s mother. She also had copies of her own letters (she usually typed them) to her children and to her own mother. We found out that she didn’t let her mother know she was pregnant (she was in NJ and her mother was in Iowa) until a month before Dick was born!
How wonderful that you have those letters. I hope you will preserve them, and try to digitize them, too. I have such a long list of things to preserve here! Yes, I remember how making long distance phone calls was a rare event when I was in college!
Lovely! I too am trying to downsize. Such a long project! During the kitchen renovation, a carpenter pulled out a hand drawn invitation for a Brownie ceremony, created by my then 7 year old daughter. It somehow was put in a cabinet drawer and slipped behind the back of the drawer. Many memories are hidden all over the place.
What a sweet thing to find!
Hi Kristin! Thank you so much for this wonderful statement regarding your mother. That was such an important reminder about your mom and how special that you found it. Yes some things are meant to be treasured.
Elaine Rogers