mom

Today would have been my moms 78th Birthday…unfortunately she didn’t make it to 61. I am always confronted by the realities, disappointments and regrets on this day, mostly because she’s not here. But I can not let the bad outweigh all of the good, the joy, the affection, caring, love and support she gave my brother and I while she was here. 

This year on my moms birthday, I am faced with another closing of a chapter. My dad has decided it’s time to sell the house we grew up in, and move into a 55 and over community. 

I remember the day we moved in. My brother and I left our old house in the morning on the bus to summer camp. We were reminded, we would be taking a different van home in the afternoon, to our new house!!! The Van pulled up to our new home while the moving truck was still in the drive way being unloaded. 

The year was 1989, I was 8. My dad had done well enough to move us out of an area that was rapidly declining. We were entering a totally new world, a world we weren’t exactly prepared for, but that’s a story for another day. 

As the moving trucks pulled out and we walked into a mostly devoid of furniture house. My mom had set up a picnic on the family room floor. We sat and ate deli and one can only assume, talked about our new home and new life. 

Well here we are close to 37 years later and the end of where I grew up is rapidly approaching. (side note, I started FroKnowsPhoto in that house) Cleaning out my dads house means figuring out what to do with 37 years worth of stuff. Child hood toys, baseball cards, clothing, stuffed animals and more. In all honesty, there’s not that much “stuff” to be taken care of. But the “stuff” that still remains is deeply personal. 

Over the years as my dad re-did our childhood rooms, long after my brother and I moved out. All of our left behind toys, clothes, trophies and odds and ends, ended up in boxes in the basement. Now my brother and I are going through everything and deciding what to do with it. 

It got me thinking about the stuff we accumulate and hold onto for 30+ years. Why did we hold on to it, and why does it still matter after 30 years of being hidden away. 

I always think about those videos on instagram where someone finds a photo album at a vintage store and says something along the lines of “I found this album, and I want to find and return it to the people in it.” The problem with that idea is, there’s a reason that album ended up in a trash pile to be discarded. 

What i’ve come up with is, that album pass from the original owners, who at some point passed away. Their children saved the album next, then they passed away, leaving an album full of images that their children had no connection to. Or in some cases, there was no one to pass the album down to. And when there’s no longer a connection to the people in those albums, there’s no reason to hold onto them any longer. It’s sad but it’s true.

Any way, back to all the stuff I have to figure out what to do with. What do I do with childhood stuffed animals? I don’t have any kids to give them to, I don’t think you can donate them at this point as they probably don’t meet todays standards. But how do you throw them out? Do you just make the decision to say goodbye and move on? Especially since they’ve been sitting in boxes for 30+ years? 

The same applies to all of our toys. Every time I look at the toys, memories come flooding back in. There’s the toy MONSTER Truck that transports me back to being a 5 or 6 year old. Do I bring it home and put it on my shelf…to basically collect dust, or do I let it go?

I’ve come to the realization that I don’t want or need more stuff that doesn’t serve a purpose. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Am I throwing away memories, memories that may no longer be triggered by that item? I don’t know. 

What I do know, is there’s items that will get moved over to my house to be stored. And one day, someone else, who has no connection to those items will have a much easier decision to make. 

I am saving all the photo albums and negatives. I’ve discovered photos of my mom and me as a child i’ve never seen before. I found my moms folder that maintained orders her friends placed with her for chocolate flowers, or pretzels or dicks on a stick. Yup, she had some fun erotic chocolate molds.

That find right there makes me wish we built her a chocolate making station in the house. She was ahead of her time with that erotic chocolate. I wish she was around as social media and personal online stores became the norm. There’s no doubt in my mind, she would have SOLD A TON of dicks on a stick.

I am sure this is a tough time for my dad as well. Selling the house he worked so hard to keep us in. The house we were raised in, the house where one by one people left. Either by moving out in the case of my me and my brother. Or dying, in the case of my mom, and a few years later her mom. 

We have to remember that stuff is just that, stuff. Some we hold on to, some we toss, and harder yet, some we debate what to do. One thing is for sure, time keeps marching on, and in 100 years, we will most likely be gone and forgotten by all. I wish that wasn’t the case, but do you know anything about your great, great, grandparents? I couldn’t tell you their names, or what they did, or where they came from…it’s sad, but it’s true. 

Thank you for taking the time to read through this. If you got this far, feel free to share some of your thoughts.

Jared Polin aka the FRO.