Photoessay #1029 - From our mothers

After I started planning my trip to Japan, my sister had asked my mom if she would like to send a piece of silver to Japan. "oh yes!" my mother replied. Later when I talked with her, she affirmed that she really wanted to do this.

Now, when I reflect on this, maybe I should have seen how things were different. My mother had always been so proud to show off her family heirlooms. Previously, she had never really talked about distributing her things. Now she seemed to let it all go. She repeatedly said that, not only did she not want to live in her cottage again (and she loved that place), she did not want to go back there. Showed no interest in what would happen to all of her precious items. She didn't worry because it was her moving on.

So I did pick out a more streamlined piece, wrapped it nicely in a new gift bag, Gave it to Nobuko the first day there (pictured). Notice that, although she has western style furniture in her room, she's sitting on the floor at the low table. Which most everybody Japanese does.

So you can see that Nobuko is very happy to have the silver dish and started using it immediately. Note to Pam and my mom.

Later, Nobuko showed me a room in the outer area of the house that was designed to be an office but was used as a storage room. "All of the things from my mom" she said "late in her life, she loved to buy things, she bought and bought and I have so much stuff. Please take some!" Specifically she had many sets of dishes, rice bowls, tea cups. So I picked out a set for each of my kids. With Ilana's help over Skype. Brilliant orange tea cups for Susanna. White plates with a swirl pattern for Danny, multi-colored bowls for Naomi, plates with a geometric sort of ble spiral pattern for Ilana. Pretty platter for JoEllyn. All are in sets of 5, which is traditional in Japan. Nobuko explains that it's not an even number because people are not always in couples.

Shown is the table of 'swag' (as Ilana and Dennis put it) of all the things I brought back from Japan. Set up in our living room. You can see the old fashioned Japanese boxes in the back. Dennis managed to get all of this stuff into our suitcases. Which is why we brought large suitcases. Not so handy moving them around.

In fact, when we got back to Seattle, Dennis considered getting a luggage cart. "You know", he said, "if we could navigate the streets of Tokyo we can get through the airport." Which was true! He would take the two big suitcases and I would take the small suitcase and the carry on bag. All on wheels. Though one time when I was going up some escalator in Narita airport I did the little shifty twist move to put the suitcase in front of me and the carry on behind me and I didn't quite pull it off. The suitcase and I went up but the other bag didn't!

So as I rifled through the many many ceramic sets that Nobuko's mom had purchased, I joked "Hey, for every piece of your mom's stuff I take, you have to take some of my mother's!"

Which is just about where we are. We all have our mother's stuff in our basements or garages. Because our mothers have passed away. So it's sad. The Jim and Lanaya show... over. The Claire and Al household also. Present company (Ann!) excepted.

Because it's really coming. That big pile of stuff in the basement in Rockford? Plus the furniture and china and crystal? It will arrive within the next two weeks. Into our garage. Becoming our problem.