So my mom died a few months ago, she wasn't herself for a long time and it was pretty hard to be around her the final years. She wasn't nice to anyone, at least not for very long, and I felt a little guilty when she died because it didn't seem like a huge loss. It was even kind of a relief.
We met at mom's old house last week, which is my sister's house also, and tried to divide up some of her belongings before giving most of it to goodwill or trash. I said that I would take her clothing, and see if there was anything that I might want to wear, then I'd take the rest to a local goodwill-type of store.
There was a lot of stuff, and after looking through pictures, dishes, junk jewelry, broken furniture, books, wall decorations, holiday stuff, stained clothing and tons of odds and ends, we finished and went our separate ways, leaving a huge amount behind to be trashed.
I finally started looking through the many boxes of clothing tonight to try to sort out what is usable and what is too worn out or stained for anyone to want.
I am kind of surprised.
I am surprised how emotional I feel whenever I recognize something my mom used to wear. Even though I did not enjoy being around her when she was at her worst, it brought out a lot of tears seeing her clothes and knowing I'd never see her wear them again. I put on one of her old sweaters to keep warm in our cold basement while doing this and I just couldn't stop crying.
I guess I'm finally mourning her. I know she loved me, and she loved ALL of us, but she was so messed up she wasn't able to show that to us for a long time. But now the old memories of how she used to be have surfaced and I feel really sad and I miss the way she USED to be, when we used to have fun and could go out to eat or go shopping without all the drama. When she acted happy to see the kids and wanted to hug them and kiss them and hear about their lives. That was a very long time ago.
We found a lot of old pictures while rummaging through her belongings, and my siblings are going to have some reprints made of the ones we thought were really good, the glimpses of the "good times". I want to remember the mom I used to have.
