What I have found so far

I sorted through 7 boxes and an obscene amount of plastic bags in 2 days. I couldn't wait to do it once I got home. If that last sentence sounded like excitement, it wasn't. The need to do it immediately was that I didn't want piles of sadness taking over my life or another nagging task on a to do list. My brain worked in several different thought processes through this, they are as follows; 1)I want to see what is here that can tell me the story of my mom. 2) I want to get this done as soon as possible so I won't get overwhelmed when I have to go back and get more stuff. 3)I can't have another nagging task on my to do list, so just get it all done at once. 4)I need to get this done for her.

I think number four has probably been my number 1 driving force. Every single day my mom would say how she had stuff to go through and how she was trying to do a little bit at a time. I had no idea what that meant. But after many offers to go see her and help, I inherited the task(thanks mom) and feel that it is my duty to do it once, and do it right. A small tribute, maybe, but even in her death maybe it is a favor?

I have found things that I didn't know she had. Some shocking things, some sentimental things, some junk, some treasures. I wonder if she remembered that she owned some of these things or if they all just got mixed up with all the rest of the things...

Truth is, mom never threw things away, a fact that I just learned. I don't know the reason why and can only guess that after all of the things in her life that she lost, she didn't want to lose things too.

So now I am left with puzzle pieces of trying to figure out who my mom was. Of course I knew her, she was my mom, my best friend, a woman I talked to almost every day for a year. But now there is a story to be read from her stuff. The jewelry, the unopened(or barely opened) improvement books, books from different classes, unopened canvases for a painting set, an unopened calligraphy set, pictures from my grandmother's generation, every thank you card we ever sent her, grocery lists, journals and notepads never written in.

There is a bigger story here, doesn't everybody have one? I can't help but feel like a bit of an intruder though. What if there are things she never wanted anyone to see or read. How do I deal with the unexpected? How will that change how I think of her? I guess we will have to wait and see...