What My Mother Kept

We are always acquiring things. We purchase some, borrow some, find others and are gifted many. It is wholly a human endeavor to gather “stuff.” At times, especially in the spring season, we clean and purge, we donate and we toss those things out that have no current purpose or occupy too much of the precious space of our everyday existences.

When you have lost a parent , this task of cleaning out a lifetime of things can be overwhelming; it feels both herculean and humbling. Cleaning out the plethora of possessions after the death of my mother, I understood more fully that which she held dear. What my mother kept in her pockets and purse, on her bureau and bookcase were as telling as her history, her degrees and accomplishments: perhaps even more so. It was the microcosm of the mundane; the treasures of her times on this earth.

Here is what my mother kept: The obligatory Kleenex which seemed to reproduce like a rabbit and was always available to wipe the tears of a child, the drool of a dog and the dust off a lampshade when the doorbell rang unexpectedly. She kept bobby pins for the hairdo she wore for 50 years or more. These also came in handy opening the bedroom door when one of us locked ourselves in during a teenage sulk, or for pinning together curtains or quickly lowering and rehemming my too short skirt. They could mark a passage in the Readers Digest to which she would never have the time to return with a full-time career and five other inhabitants of the house with no inherent helpful leanings.

Mom kept articles and obituaries of every old classmate, friend, and even strangers, often underlining the words she loved. She loved the turn of a phrase, the patterns of poems. She kept quotes that spoke to her and would slide them under the sides of her bureau mirror to look at for decades until the yellowed fragments required scotch tape to make sense once more. Some quotes were clipped to an old photograph as if the quote and the picture spoke one single thought; loss, perseverance, strength, faith, joy…..

Mom kept packets of sugar and mayonnaise and salt pilfered from restaurants in case the Great Depression reoccurred. She always had plastic spoons which she washed and rewashed because she had grown up knowing “You use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” She always made certain everyone had what they needed and more, and never would she place her needs ahead of ours. Luckily we never needed the 18 year old jar of baby food we found in the cupboard when we cleaned out her house nor the mercurochrome that was banned by the FDA 20 years prior.

Mom’s pockets always had a smooth stone or two from Jasper Beach which she treasured more than gemstones. She had a rock from England’s Hadrian’s Wall and one from a penguin’s nest in Antarctica but she left those on her bureau, preferring the reminders of her beloved coast. Feathers always made their way into Mom’s clutch. The vivid cerulean of a blue jay, the neon yellow of a goldfinch and the downy tuft from a robin - each treasured. Acorns from the large oaks at the end of Cooper Street lived in her treasures far longer than some of the long lived residents of the neighborhood. She often kept the misshapen ones, which she championed as “interesting”.

She had garnered a collection of sayings from Salada Tea bags from the 1960s which she tucked in her wallet beside the pictures of her loved ones. One read “Happiness in a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy”. Another read “Live and let live is fine but live and help live is better.” These maxims reflected how she felt about living - her happiness came from helping others.

Mom kept art projects from every medium available : play dough, poster paint and pipe cleaners…she amazingly remembered which child or grandchild made the misshapen masterpiece and what grade and occasion it marked. Though Dad had bought her a lovely jewelry box, she kept our nascent artist playdough bowls on her dresser and it was in those she kept her treasures.

She kept every love letter from my father, organized with a caption on each envelope -Linc in Florida, Linc coming to visit at Bates . She kept each small scrap of paper penned by my stepdad, Jack, a man of few words but great love. Mom kept address books spanning Manchester to Marblehead , Milbridge to Machias and never crossed any name out, as if a line of ink would remove the memory of old friends and family ties.

She had piles of programs of soggy swim meets and blaring band concerts as she spent many years on bleachers watching Josh and Bryan, her two treasured grandsons. She kept little ceramic animals and large stuffed ones as well, like her father, Pappy, did. Each was endowed with a fitting and often humorous moniker. There was Izzy Iskovitz, for example. She kept lists of the names she had given the neighborhood creatures; Sammy the Squirrel at the birdfeeder, Wilbur the spider in the kitchen window, Sargent the three striped pigeon on the railing and Mr. P, the ring necked pheasant in the backyard. She kept watch for every creature and delighted in their sightings. She shopped for corn and peanuts and spread them in the backyard for their dining pleasure.

She kept tally of every cherry tomato grown on her hanging plant and regaled us with the increasing number of her summer bounty. Woe to the person who tried to leave her house without some in Tupperware! Mom kept faded pictures of the loons at Long Pond, the fog at the coast, the crimson blueberry barrens in the fall and the crocuses in the spring. She kept the Downeast Calendars from sixty years past as she loved the reminders of all of the seasons.

Mom also kept intangible things. She kept our secrets when we were ashamed of our own behavior like the time I climbed up on a kitchen chair and used a boy scout knife to connect the knots of the pine paneling on the wall in my bedroom into the shape of a race car. She kept our spirits up when we failed to make the cut for a team or walked home alone too many days after school. She kept our family ties strong when we fought and when we wanted to be with friends instead of spending our weekends lined up like soggy sardines in a tent with our siblings. Those memories now are something shared with nostalgia and our entire family now marks over 50 years at that very same tent site every summer weekend.

Mom kept our perspectives balanced; she convinced me in third grade that a repainted boy’s bike was even better than a girl’s bike and I would be one of the lucky few with an extra bar on my bike. Mom kept our faith strong with Sunday school and with prayer tucking us in at night. She kept each of us, children, daughters in law Sharon and Jane, and grandchildren feeling like her favorite, although we always knew it was David. She kept our hearts whole when heartbreak beckoned: losing Dad so young, pregnancy losses, divorce, Jack’s Alzheimer’s. She kept her own heartbreak to herself…never crying, never cursing - raising us instead of her voice.

She kept three generations under one roof, albeit with one bathroom, but what we gained living like this was worth listening to all 1,065 Lawrence Welk shows. (Honest, there were exactly 1,065 episodes…) She kept us safe when Peter was caught smoking and hid the burning cigarette in an ashtray under his bed or when David was sliding down Elephant’s Hump steep hill in the pasture in a completely vertical plunge. Mom kept increasing her love to wrap her arms around Sharon and Jane - her daughters in law whom she loved like her own biological kids and kept ever thankful that her sons found the luck to marry women so perfect for them. She kept the stories of her beloved brother, Allan, and his escapades with her as family stories we would beg to hear over and over again.

She kept the belief that women could be strong and compassionate, brilliant and beautiful decades before the women’s movement. She kept the mindset that men could make a grilled cheese sandwich or empty a hamper into the laundry without incurring bodily harm, though I do remember David did call home once to ask how long to hard-boil an egg.

Mom kept our slightly unbalanced family on an even keel. She kept us grounded: she helped us understand that families are the greatest treasure and friends are always welcome, that time is the only commodity that matters and that we are imperfect yet beautifully whole.

A wise woman once said “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” I know how much Mom’s heart held. I know what my mother held in her heart by what she kept in her possessions. She held joy in the tiny miracles of nature, hope in the penned words of poets, optimism and resilience with life’s unexpected struggles, love for her family and her multitude of friends and faith in her God. This is what my Mother kept.

~~~~~

About the author ~

Julie Stackpole Kingsbury lives in Maine and is a mother to a psychologist son who has been analyzing her since he could talk and reason. She is surrounded by an entourage of loving family, friends and four legged things that shed. A nurse practitioner career has taught her countless lessons on living, aging and caregiving. None has been more poignant nor life changing than the caregiving and loss, at ninety one, of her beloved mom. With dark chocolate, a clean sheet of lined paper, and her favorite pen at hand, she endeavors to bring these lessons to life.