Letting Go

 

 

My mother left her house for her new assisted living apartment and never turned back.  With her declining cognition, her things had become a burden to her. They had lost their meaning and she let is all go.  She left it up to me to decide what to move and what to give away.   While I am grieving her decline, I am in awe of how effortlessly she has let it all go. 

 

It was heartbreaking to pack up and give most of her things away.  While they no longer held any meaning for my mother, for me they resonated with the vibrancy of her former life and were soaked in memory.  There was the dining room table my mother had since she was first married where we celebrated holidays, anniversaries, and birthdays with extended family and friends.  I can see the table now piled with the familiar platters, plates, and bowls overflowing with the foods of my Italian American culture.  The pasta with meatballs, grilled peppers and eggplant drenched in olive oil, fresh Parmesan, and Romano cheeses. Slices of Italian bread are scattered between the bowls of food and glasses of wine.  I remember the days of rousting over who made the best cannoli or meatballs, the complaining and gossiping about neighbors or disappointing children and in-laws, the stories my grandparents told about the old country, the depression, the war.  Then later when my grandparents grew older and sat more and more quietly with each passing season and then their absences from the table in the years that followed. 

 

I see my father sitting at the head of the table, leaning over his pasta dish while he twirled the sauce covered strands around his fork.   My mother, aunt and grandmother are gliding into and out of the kitchen bringing the empty dishes out and the next courses of food in. The meals would end after many hours with the sweet liquors (Strega and Anisette) to go with the coffee, cannoli and Italian cookies.  After everyone left, my mother insisted that every plate, dish, and platter be cleaned and put away before bed.

 

I had to let it all go.  The few things I took with me are now scattered around my house, my grandmother’s salt and pepper shaker, my mother’s sugar and cream crystal, a plastic bag filled with my father’s tie clips, the eggplant scoop my grandfather crafted for my grandmother by hand.  When I see them, it is as if they are with me again.

 

Life has a way of asking us to give things up.  We cling to our things because they offer us comfort or meaning.  While some things are very precious to us, in the end, things cannot save us from inevitable change and loss. Things cannot fill our most intimate of longings for belovedness, belonging, and safety. While I am grieving my mother’s decline and her loss of so many things, I am also in awe of how so unexpectedly she has been able to let go as she crosses this threshold into a greater unknown.