It will be nice family keepsake picture.
But where's this picture taken? My parent's last home, their 'cottage' at Wesley Willows in Rockford IL. The photographer is standing in the dining area, the kitchen to the right, their small family room in the left background. That sliding door leads out to a screened porch that my mother always insisted on.
Under what conditions would by husband and adult son be in Rockford? Because either my father died (2007) or my mother died (2010). Looking at the data stored as part of the image, the date is Feb 25 2010.
My mother died February 21, 2010. All of my family (husband,4 adult kids) came to the memorial. I remember it took me an entire afternoon to get the flights all set up.
Everything is still in place, the books in the bookcase, the things on the kitchen counter, things on the wall. Mere hours after this picture, we'll start completely tearing the place apart. That was the time that we would all be there. It cost a fair penny in fees for every month they had the place. For all of us, there would be no reason to continue to make trips to Rockford, none of us lived there. The time was now. So we started in,
Such a painful job, I've had to do it twice. You have a family, a household, maybe you've known that household your entire life. Now you have to tear it apart, divide up the familiar items, get rid of the rest. Hopefully without conflict.
Early in the process, I sat down with my brother and sister and said "Ok, let's get it out, is there anything that you really really want? That you are going to have a big fit if you don't get it? Say it now!"
I said I wanted the 'Delia wall,' the group of pictures of our great grandmother Delia that my mother had in the living room including the framed lace fan.
My sister said she wanted the embroidered rocking chair.
My brother said he wanted the glass fronted bookcases.
But it's still hard because your parents' household is no more, you must destroy it, it has no meaning any more. I know that people take months and years to do it.
But were all there, be leaving in a few days so get busy! My mother had china and silver that didn't end. We divided up and I made all the grandchildren take some. Whether they wanted it or not.
We had an assembly line going to Goodwill. We found out that you can just dump your boxes and take them back to fill them again. We established piles to go to each of us including. my cousin Mary Ann. Those dining room chairs, you just see some of the wood backs in the foreground. They're in my dining room and my husband complains about them every day.
That starts very soon after this picture. Maybe my brother and sister and I had started it a little during my mother's last days. We knew she wouldn't return but we couldn't really do much, we just had to get through it.
My parents had pretty good control of their possessions. Me, it would be awful, though we do period of cleaning out. When Susanna was getting ready to move to Alabama, we let her clean out things and sell a bunch of our stuff at a garage sale. Plus we had a giant pile of stuff. But, for those of us still active and especially if you have a bunch of 20 something adult children, large amounts of items come and go. Mostly come and get deposited at your house.
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