Bob and I sat down today for one of those difficult discussions. It’s time (again) to de-clutter and downsize. We already did that ten years ago, when we moved to our senior community but we still brought stuff (like CDs, videos, thousands of 2×2 slides, career memories) to sort “when we have time.”  We’re running out of time, but not distractions and interests.

One option for disposing of treasures before they become anonymous clutter is to find those who will treasure them.  We convinced my mother-in-law to give away her collection of horse pins: gifts of her grateful 6^th grade students over decades of time. Those gifts were meaningful to her grandchildren, who probably still take joy in them; she enjoyed the giving and sharing as each child lingered over their selection. It was still hard for her. Parting with them acknowledged that she wouldn’t live forever.  By the time she died at age 100, she no longer remembered the pins or cared about how any of her far more sentimental treasures were distributed. I’m glad we urged her to give them away when it brought joy to everyone.

My grandmother was much more concerned about disposing of her treasures. She wanted her treasures around during her lifetime, but carefully planned where each would go upon her death. She was barely 50 years old when I discovered the little pieces of adhesive tape on almost everything in her house. One of my treasures is Grandma’s candy dish with my mother’s (maiden) name carefully marked on the adhesive tape. You can see the tape in the photo above; that dish still makes me smile with memories of my grandmother’s house and organization. I would never mar it with candy! After her death, I also inherited the silver she wanted me to have and I carefully recorded the stories.

Sadly, those memories are not as meaningful to my children, for whom the treasures are clutter. The expectation of my generation was that we would treasure Grandma’s dishes and silverware and pass them on with the stories about them. That’s just not true anymore. Silver is tedious to polish; memories are easily lost on the hectic world of children and electronics. Practicality wins out. My children have already declined Grandma’s (and my) silver several times. Should I continue to nag them? Or just melt it down or give it away to someone who will probably melt it down? Should I remove the tape from the candy dish and put it on our resident treasure shelf for some one to enjoy, unaware of its history?

That’s why we still have clutter…..it’s actually the stories we cannot let go. ( Confession: After writing this, I created a “catalogue” of some of our kitchen clutter. Wonderfully, my daughters selected some of those treasures with joy. Even more joyful for me was hearing that they were being used. They may yet accept the silverware and the candy dish… )