Purge-Related Sadness

 I visited my mom, delivering vegetables from our CSA subscription.  She showed me around her lovely tomato garden, then asked me if I wanted to see what she's been throwing out of her basement.

One of her beloved sister died a couple of summers ago and we cleared out her house in fits and starts. She kept lots of papers, mementos, photographs, work IDs, hair of her husband.  Some delightful things. One a typewritten list of the cute, grammatically incorrect things my little brothers said  as tiny children.  The clear out was a huge project, painful, took weeks.  After that my mother started winnowing down her own possessions.

My mom put  brightly colored plastic drink coolers, as vintage, wind up clock from the 1970s into the recycling bin. I pulled them out to display on top of a lid, thinking someone would be attracted by the bright yellow and orange and rescue them.  She had a separate big cardboard box of metal objects.  I asked about the items. I pulled out a caddy for drinking glasses, a 2-part, aluminum, Santa baking mold, a jewelry caddy from the 1940s.  She said that she was sorry she showed me. I didn't want to upset her any more, so I stopped my treasure hunting.

Santa was similar to this.

Later after I left, I circled to take another detour through her alley and saw a landscape worker winding up the clock.  It was his time now.  His turn.  His treasures.

I continued past him homeward bound.

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