A Walk Down Memory Lane & Lesson About Life

[Mike Tarak]

I spent yesterday helping my sister. She's one of my best friends and runs her own business doing residential cleaning. Her oldest (a Jr. at IU) hates this job of hers and doesn't think she should be "doing that kind of work". What he fails to realize is that along with her husband (who works FT for AT&T), this business my sister runs puts him and his younger brother through college and will probably help pay for their younger sister to go as well!

So, yesterday we spent a part of our day doing what I'll call "Pitch and Chuck"....Her client who lives in San Diego...this house was his recently deceased father's and he hired my sister to come in and go through EVERYTHING and figure out what was able to be donated (Goodwill, Damien Center, etc) and what needed to go to the trash man.

8 years ago my dad died and we had to do the same thing at the house we grew up in, in order to downsize our mom into a condo. It brought back some memories of that day at our house and more....I don't know if this had more "Pack Rat" than my mom back 8 years ago...but if not, it damn sure was a close second!

Today it got me thinking about my nephew's comments regarding my sister and her chosen line of work. She was a stay at home mom for a number of years after spending a few years working for a dentist. At one point, she didn't have to work but as the kids got older and the college expenses came...she chose to work for herself, which is admirable....and the toilets don't talk back either!

So, as I stood in the garage with work gloves on going through this strangers "stuff" and trying to decide what to keep for him to sort through and what to pitch.......it hit me. One day my nephew will probably have to do this type of thing or hire someone else to to do it.

So many memories and at least a part of the life of a man and his entire family were in my hands in that 1200sf, 3BR ranch home on the north side yesterday.....So many things that were meaningless to me and made me wonder what they were for...They probably paid the mortgage and put food on the table for our customer when he was a kid and some were passing through my hands into the trash during those two hours we were there.

Countless magazines and tools used in fashion design or something along those lines. Burried in one stack was a Playboy Magazine from what seemed like circa 1950-1960....

Remains from old "honey do" projects.....Nuts, bolts, screws, old shower heads, old christmas lights and ornaments, furniture, dinner plates, glasses....you name it - it was in there. It's amazing how much phyisical "stuff" one can accumulate if you try! My advice...PURGE-PURGE-PURGE! If you replace your shower head 7 times in 30+ years at your residence, there's really no need to keep the old one...You are not gonna put it back up are ya?!

In closing...life isn't really about our "stuff" or how we get our "stuff". It's about the memories behind our "stuff". I'm sure there was good reason why this old soul kept 7 old shower heads in a box in the garage...Seemed silly to me but I know he had good reason. Kinda like my sister and why she does this work....Nephew, I hope you read this....

Sis...I love ya....Thanks for spending time with me!

[roy g. Jones]

These moments in life are the ones that really count. How fortunate you are to be able to spend that time with your sibling.

[Lynn Zettler]

What a lovely sentiment. You are absolutely right---the memories are what we really want to hold on to.