Estate sale news and blues in Daydreaming on the Porch

(Note: The following contains the comment I left after reading a quite moving entry by fellow diarist Pedestrian Wandering. Here I elaborate further on that comment to more fully express my state of mind and feelings after just going through one of life’s necessary, but emotionally wrenching, experiences: a two-day estate sale for my beloved mother’s belongings, as my brother, sister and I prepare to sell her house two years after her passing)

The day after the conclusion of our recent estate sale for Mom’s beautiful antiques, china and prints, I can say for sure that sentiment has no price and is the most subjective of qualities.

To me everything that Mom had was important. Nothing seemed mundane. Everything from the lowliest comb or brush to the magnificent framed botanical prints hung throughout the house, was imbued with her character, taste and personality. It was all “her,” which was why selling so much of it, that which I and my siblings did not choose to keep for ourselves, was such a painful and poignant experience. In my case particularly, it has stretched for many months and most surely has extended the grieving process that has yet to have its final curtain and which, in fact, won’t.

As for all of the myriad boxes and files full of my memorabilia spanning every decade of my life, I am afraid most all of it will remain after I am gone. I am sorry, but I have no children to burden with this task, and it doesn’t appear at this point that I will ever be especially close to my only niece and nephew. They will likely assist my sister in having most of those items, precious and memorable only to me, hauled off to some landfill. So be it. My self-published photo books and my copious online writing here and at Open Diary are all that I could hope, and possibly expect, to be preserved and linger on in some way, shape or form. Or maybe lost like everything else eventually will be.

Again, I’m sorry if any of this is a burden to others, but if any of them should ever read this, I offer my apologies, but I can’t part with any of it yet.

Again, the rather sad, but at this point inevitable fact of my having no children or descendants who might save and treasure little objects or artifacts that had special meaning for me, makes this whole subject of memorabilia and keepsakes that much more personal and important to me. Because after all, it is we alone who know the innermost meaning of those preserved objects, letters, diaries and papers. And it is a fact that we all come into this world alone in our helplessness, and depart in much the same way.