CHRISTMAS STUFF

My mother, Peggy, had to leave the place that she was staying one day.  It was a long time ago, but there are still some things about that day that I have trouble forgetting.  My mother was less upset about finding herself without a place to call home, and more upset about not being able to take all of her stuff with her.  She was not talking about the things that she would need to live, she was talking about her “Stuff.”

     Her “Stuff” was the accumulation of just about anything that would remind her of better days.  Days long before. Long before everything started to go badly.  She had saved anything of even the slightest significance from her childhood and from the lives of her four kids.  When I say anything, I mean everything.  First shoes, first school shoes, horse shoes.  Christening dresses, first communion dresses, Indian headdresses.  Silverware, flatware, underwear.  She saved it all.  It was her "Stuff.”

      “That ‘Stuff’ is all of my memories,” she would complain to me.  

     “That ‘Stuff’ is the ‘Stuff’ that is just ‘Stuff,” Peggy.” I would always answer.  “Your memories are in your mind.  They can never be taken from you and you have them wherever you go.”  That is what I would always say to her to try to get her to let go of her “Stuff.”   To realize that it is only ‘Stuff.”  That the memories matter and that the ‘Stuff” does not.

     We got her moved into a nice garden apartment, with enough room for some of her “Stuff.”  Even then it was not enough, though.  To her, some “Stuff” was more important than just normal “Stuff.”  She wanted the important “Stuff.”  In particular, she wanted her Christmas “Stuff.”

     She wanted the ornaments that we made as kids, in school and at home.  She wanted the ornaments that she had custom made for each kid and grandchild.  Ornaments and her stocking from her own childhood.  The stockings that each of her children were given for their first Christmas.  The tree topper that was a gift on my very first Christmas.  The strings of glass beads that draped over and around the tree.  Ornaments that she unpacked so carefully each year after Thanksgiving to place on particular spots on each tree and repacked so carefully after Christmas for 40 years.  Her kids knew these ornaments well.  They helped her hang them each year.  It became an obsession with her.  “It is just ‘Stuff,’ Peggy,”  I would tell her again and again.  And over the years, she begin to hear me.  She began to listen.  She began to talk about her memories, instead of show them off.

     Peggy became very friendly with the people who lived and worked in her Garden apartment complex.  When they stopped by to check on her she would usually hold them hostage while she recalled a half dozen memories or so to share with them.  When the guys that worked there stopped by to fix something or to take out her trash for her, she would go on and on.  I would apologize for her to them.  They always told me that they enjoyed listening to her.  Slowly the talk about her “Stuff” faded away.

     My sister managed to collect Peggy’s Christmas “Stuff” over time.  And one year, before Christmas, she gathered it all together to give to Peggy at Christmas.  It was raining that day, so she put the old beat up and worn boxes in trash bags to keep them dry.  When she got there, it was early.  Peggy was still sleeping.  She called me and I told her that I would be by in about an hour.  I told her to leave them in front of the door and that I would take them in to Peggy when I got there.  She left them in front of the door.

     When I got there, there were no bags at her door.  Peggy must have already found them.  I thought.  I walked in, expecting to find Peggy, gleefully poring over her lost “Stuff.”  She was still in bed.  I walked back outside and walked around the building, thinking that my sister must have put them in front of the wrong door.  One of the men that worked there saw me and said hello.  

     “Good morning!” I said. “Have you seen any bags at my Mom’s front door?”

     “The trash bags?” he answered.

      “Yes!”

     “You didn’t have to stop by, sir, I already took them to the dumpster.  I wanted to get them in while the trash truck was still here.”

     Behind him I could see the trash truck making the right turn to leave the apartment complex.  I didn’t say a word, because I couldn’t say a word.  I felt like I was going to throw up. 

     “Are you ok, sir?” he asked.

     “Yea.  So the bags went into the dumpster and the dumpster went into the truck that just left?”

     “Yes sir.  Is something wrong?”

     “No. Everything is fine.  Thanks for looking out for Peggy.  Merry Christmas.”

     "Merry Christmas to you, too, sir!” he said as I walked away.

     I did not tell Peggy about that for a long time.  Most “Stuff” is easier to deal with, when it is other people’s “Stuff.”  What was in those bags that day was different, though.  There were a lot of my memories in those bags.  My “Stuff.”  When it is your “Stuff,” that puts it in a different perspective.  So I had to deal with my "Stuff" in the same manner that Peggy had to deal with her “Stuff.”  That took a little time too.  But, I kept the memories and I let the “Stuff” go.  

     You can keep a memory forever.  A memory never gets old.  A memory get told. A memory never dies.  A memory lasts forever.

     That is all.

Other "Stuff"

     When I ended up telling Peggy what had happened to the Christmas "Stuff,” she sat down.  She looked at the floor for a few minutes.  A tear or two fell on that floor.  Then she looked up and shook her head and said "It was just 'Stuff' anyway."  We spent most of that afternoon talking about the things that were in those bags instead of just looking at them.

This morning dove sits in the tree outside of the window of my office, in our backyard.  It sits there in the same spot, at the same time, every year around Christmas time.  Someone told me it's because of the warmth of the sun.  May be.  May not be too.