the things we do not keep

As executor of my mother’s will, I meticulously set about distributing her possessions to my sister and children.  I made a catalogue of everything she owned and circulated it so that each in turn could make his or her choices as mom’s legal document specified.  After that, I kept the things that had nostalgic meaning for me and let the rest go.  It’s a process of culling that most families go through.   

The other night I was watching “Antiques Roadshow” on PBS.  I love those moments when a person brings in something that they’ve had lying around the house or inherited from a relative and find out it is worth much more than they anticipated.  Even when they learn that it’s worth thousands, most of them say, “but I would never sell it.”  I always wonder about what happens next.

This particular episode was revisiting some of the richest finds and what happened after.  One woman had brought in a chair from her mother, and she found out that it was so rare that it was worth $800,000 or more.  In the recap we learned that her mother’s financial advisor said it should be sold for a few reasons:  the cost of insurance would be prohibitive, it might end up being something than heirs would fight over, and her mother could use the income for the remaining years of her life.  It was sold. 

There is nothing in my home worth that much.  But I still fret about how estates are divided…first my mother’s and eventually my husband’s and mine.  Which brings me to the subject of something I did not keep. 

When my mom was still alive and living in a nursing home, I had asked her if I could send my sister the framed baby identification necklace that she had worn in the hospital.  Mine was framed and hanging next to it, and I had a place in my house where I wanted to put mine.  My mother replied that she thought they looked so nice as a set. “Couldn’t we keep them together?” she asked.  I didn’t see how that would work…did she imagine that Nancy would move in with me so that we didn’t have to split up the baby necklaces?  Or did she think that I should keep Nancy’s forever or send Nancy mine?  I finally persuaded her that we could let Nancy’s necklace go. 

But I did keep mine. 

Love, Liz