Dead People can be Alive

I have heard of people selling off their valuables, getting their affairs in order, giving away things that were an enormous part of their lives...when they feel, or get bad news. They are dying (or someone very close to them is), they have (or someone very close to them) has an inoperable ailment, someone is extremely, horribly and hopelessly depressed, or they are planning on killing themselves...

or maybe they are just...what?

At first, I thought it was a little neat that my Mom was sending me a package of what she called "stuff" from the attic of her house. I was a bit intrigued as to exactly what she had found and was looking forward to my package. Well, I got my package and it was neat. It was full of things from my life.

Inside the box was about 300 or more photos of me from the time my mother was pregnant with me until I moved out of her house. All of my school awards, my graduation announcements, newspaper articles, dance pictures, videos, cards, Mother's Day gifts, Christmas ornaments I made, my baby books, baby shoes, even one of the cigars my Dad gave out when I was born. Everything was in that box. Every single moment of my life.

I thought it a little odd (well, a lot odd) as I could never picture myself giving my children "away" until they day that I die. Still, I thanked my mother for sending the box and said I enjoyed the things she had sent. My kids had really gotten a kick out of seeing it all. Wow Mom, you were a really awesome kid!

I'm a really awesome adult too, but I digress.

A couple of weeks later, a second package arrives. More photos, more mementos, but this time, pictures of my kids. Then I got upset because I got to thinking: Don't Mother's only part with their children at death?

And pictures of the grandchildren too?

Who gives back pictures of their grandchildren?

Something is horribly wrong here.

I understand cleaning out the attic. I don't have an attic, but I do have a basement and lord knows I do get to cleaning it out every other year (or so). When I do, I find boxes and boxes of stuff that make me smile and damn it, make me cry. Hell, I clean out a drawer in my kitchen and find a picture, or drawing one of my kids made from 6 months ago and I get a lump in my throat. I just can't imagine parting with any of it until the day that I take my last breath.

I can't throw it away...I just can't.

And so I felt, that when I gotten these boxes, that I was getting thrown away. It was as if after 35 years, I had been held onto for long enough and that my Mom was just "done" with me. My youngest brother and my Aunt and Uncle had received similar boxes.

We all think it's strange.

My husband seems to think that my Mother has just "given up" on life. It's as if everything she has ever loved is just insignificant now. It's as if she is dead, yet somehow, still breathing. Dead inside. How does someone get to that point in their lives? I know exactly how...and that stage is "denial."