I'm feeling strange with an abrupt shift of gears today. Coming off of a 7 day on-call mindset, totally consumed by things medical, I'm back to work at the Arapahoe house. MM and I are at it again; one step at a time, towards the goal of getting the house on the market.
This is a sad time but I try not to dwell on the meaning of breaking up a home, dispersing every item therein and closing the door for the last time. The finality troubles me.
This week we're witnessing the fruits of our labors in April where all items of value were photographed and cataloged into a document for all seven grandchildren of Dean and Doris to peruse and select items they might like to have. Furniture, rugs, wall hangings, dishes, crystal, silverware. Everything.
What I thought would be simple, wasn't. Creating the inventory was an enormous task. We had hundreds of photographs of items divided into categories. MM did the bulk of the work on the master document and the task of encouraging the family to participate in the process in the midst of their busy lives. That was harder than I had anticipated.
A friend of mine went through this process with her parent's home awhile back. Using a similar list, she was amazed how dispersal seemed to magically "sort itself out". I hope that's the case for us. To some degree we're noticing this with our master list. It's fascinating to learn what's important to the third generation of our family. Everyone is unique. Some have selected many items. Others 2 or 3 at most. Interesting.
When all is said and done, the "left overs" will either go to thrift shops, consignment, or....get packed up and stored in my home. There are so many things that I can't part with just yet, can't let go into the big world.
This is hard.
I like what you've written about what we are doing. You say it well
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