Going through the Stuff

When is it ok to throw stuff out? One friend used to say, "after seven years, chuck it." I did that for a while, dating backwards and tossing out old papers-- financial and tax papers, business correspondence, magazines (except for National Geographics magazines, of course, which I "donated" and which probably still sit unclaimed somewhere along with a whole lot more of the same. They are surely the hardest magazines to throw out!)

Certain papers were spared each time I went through the stuff weeding out old documents. House papers, for instance, even those from houses long ago vacated by our family--old houses are like family members in a way. Definitely old letters, especially family letters. Old Will & Testament papers and the drafts and corrections that led to the finished products, even though new Will & Testaments had followed. That ecru vellum looked so important, how could I just throw it away? Old sports career records and clippings. Marriage announcements and invitations, old passports, driver's licenses, social security cards--all in some way documentation of our family having lived and done something.

It took me long years before I was willing to throw away files that my father had laboriously collected-- details on lined foolscap stapled to finished products of whatever project it was; I had watched a ton of foolscap notes move through his familiar brown clipboard over the years. And there were medical papers-- records of the illness that was his companion for so many years. When he became blind, I kept these things for him-- each medical expense coded with a number I gave it and a huge yellow columnar accounting sheet showing when, where, who, how much, when submitted to medicare, when paid by medicare, when submitted to Blue Cross, when paid by Blue Cross, when and how much finally paid by patient. There were really drawers and drawers of these records-- I mean eight or nine tightly packed commercial type filing drawers.

Periodically I nibbled away at these papers, first throwing out the carbon copies, mimeographs and xeroxes that abounded. Eventually I tossed out the income tax papers from decades past. Yes, I peeked at a sampling of the entries, amazed at the difference between Dad's income in the 40's as compared to the 70's when he died. Then I'd have to let them go--important once, but now moot, regardless of how ardently he kept them.

A big moving day at the time of my own retirement expedited the process of weeding out: Ruthlessly taking chunks of my parents' life and barely riffling them before chucking them into the fireplace, I had a grit-your-teeth grief and relief sort of session, whittling down the masses of papers to one cardboard filing box. No time for sentiment when you are packing to move-- you just do it and get on to the next thing.

What ended up in that box? My dad's collection of mimeographed puzzles and riddles that he had collected over the years, mostly from the office. His letters to and from my mother. The Army Navy E Award earned by his office for their contributions to the WWII effort. His birth certificate and death certificate and the final Last Will & Testament. Letters written about him when he died. Address books with a lifetime of names and places in them. His school yearbooks and academic degrees and documents. His treasured nautical charts from the Chesapeake Bay. And still a few records from his last years when I was keeping the records for him-- a sort of abbreviated log of woes that he and my Mom and I fought through together.

These slightly musty smelling papers reside in that cardboard file box in my basement now, labeled Old Papers-- with my father's initials on them. I have another carton with my Mom's papers in it-- they are mostly letters with strings around them with some dried corsages, cruise menus, dance cards with silky cords and tassels, playbills, diaries, sketch books, letters from her father.

So what will be the stuff that my own children will go through and decide about when I die?

Some things I am sure they will find are childhood drawings by themselves. These are precious to me, and I am still certain that they are the best art in the world. There are letters my mother and I wrote nearly every day when I was first married. There are journals I kept during parts of my life when I was in a writing mode. Too many papers, really, to keep all of them. Sketch books. All these house papers and medical papers and retirement papers and old wills and testaments. Duplicate files. My notes from college classes. Birth and death certificates. A ton of photo albums that need to be weeded out-- who are these pictures of? People only I might remember from school and the swimming team-- no one they would possibly ever know or hear about..And the boxes of my parents' stuff, of course.

Once I heard a sermon about what is and is not important. The recommended questions to ask oneself, the preacher said, were: Will it matter in a year? Will it matter in ten years? Will it matter in a hundred years? Will it matter in eternity? This really makes the decision about what to keep and what to toss.

If I can make myself do it, I'll do some throwing out soon. Who really cares about what I got on my math exam in eleventh grade? No one-- not even me! But the cartoon of my father that my daughter made when she was 13-- now that's a keeper! And the kids will find, as I did, the mimeographed puzzles and riddles that my father collected over the years from his office. And I'll bet they keep them!

Green Thumb