I cleaned out my grandparents house – so much stuff. finding every driver’s license they’d ever had – every tax return they ever filed, a shoe box containing every single pair of glasses they ever owned – even the broken ones – my grandmothers favorite red velvet housecoat. The rusted bed springs that had hung on the cellar wall of the old house demolished for the freeway and then been moved to hang on the basement wall of the new house for another 40 years. My grandfathers moth eaten service coat from WWII, his WWII south pacific bronze stars that he never talked about. The console stereo and records of Dean Martin and Ed Ames that my grandmother loved.

And the pictures. Pictures and pictures of people none of us could identify. Young people in a world before the war. Letters from the war, ration cards. Pictures and letters of the grandchildren, of myself, that I had never seen – sent by my mom from living abroad during my fathers military career. And a date book – my grandmothers – with her plans and appointments for a year that never happened because of a lethal New Years day heart attack.

My grandfather lived in that house for another 25 years after my grandmother died before he could no longer live there. And he would not let us change anything – clean out anything – though I don’t think he ever opened any of these boxes, or spare closets, or photo albums during that quarter century. I have a mixture of fondness and regret for the house which has been sold and remodeled and made over beautifully for a new family. Not all family stories it contained were happy ones for my mother. But that story is not mine to tell.

This was such a powerful story. Thank you for sharing. I have listened to it twice and I don’t expect to stop anytime soon.