In Gram's Attic

It has been exactly 30 days since my last post.  There has been a lot of life in my life.  I appreciate anyone who still checks in.  Have much to blog and am glad to have a moment to virtually sit down with you and share what is memorable to this mama.

I moved 11 times from birth to age 18.  I have moved 7 times since attending college.  Long ago I resigned myself to the fact that any remembrance of my childhood was long since tossed.  It is why I have chosen to keep pieces and bits for my sons.  I want to have the books, folders and a box or two of school projects long gone brittle with age. 

With my mother's death followed so closely by Gram's passing, I have found myself with the un-enviable task of going through their pieces and bits of memorable stuff.  My mother kept every card I sent her.  She kept all the pictures I sent, not in the frames so often provided, in the envelopes in which they arrived.  She didn't put out the pictures, rather kept them in drawers. 

Gram was even more sparing in her amassing of memorable stuff.  So when my Uncle called to say I could come fetch what remained of Mom's from Gram's attic, I had no expectations on what I would discover.  To be honest, I just wanted Gram's cast iron cookwear, long seasoned and tasty in it's browny slick cookingness.  The cookwear was nowhere to be found.  What I found was far more delicious.

In boxes in the corner was my childhood.  Papers from elementary school.  Report cards.  Baby blankets and dolls.  Small reminders that at one time I existed and I liked shiny blankets from Korea.

I couldn't sort through it.  I couldn't sift for very long.  The memories threatened to choke me more than the rotted insulation it was all covered with. 

So, it is done.  Mom's house is on the market.  Gram's house soon will be.  The bits and pieces of their lives have all been sorted and spread out among children, grandchildren and the dumpster.

I am thankful to have found my childhood in Gram's attic.  Now I can continue to unpack the boxes of my mothering adulthood.