After the sale there was still SO MUCH STUFFFFFFF! It truly is amazing how much stuff filled that house. Jan and I decided to donate things to places where it would help others the most. It's November now and since the sale nine weeks ago I have taken many truck loads away from mom's house. Many loads went to Savers. Truckloads went to the ReStore - a place that recycles things like tools, nails, sinks, wood, etc. I bagged up the rest of mom's clothing and took 12 huge black garbage bags of beautiful clothing to the United Way for the Women and Children's Justice Center to help women and children of domestic abuse. I counted the items to help on mom's taxes - there were more than 1,000 clothing items!! And that was after the sale and after we took what we wanted of mom's things. Wow!
Jan and I also met and went through some treasures – one night we had dinner and looked at all the jewelry, taking items for ourselves and our children. One night we went through the hope chest and mom’s dresser. We have a box of sewing items to go through still.
Jan also had the idea for one last sleepover at mom's - a grand hurrah! She and Steph and Steph's kids Sabryna, Mychigan, Daisy, Rvyer, Sawyer and Wyllow and I had a backyard hotdog roast and celebrated Daisy's birthday. We had a fire in the fireplace and used the patio furniture one last time. McKade and Amanda joined us for hotdogs later. The kids ran around the yard until after dark. We played nertz at the round game table dad built. It was a wild, happy, crazy game! The little kids climbed into the linen closet upstairs. Sabryna read quietly on the couch. We slept upstairs. I slept in my old bedroom. I hadn't slept there since the night before I married Riley - that was on June 11, 1980. I slept on the floor and thought of memories made in that room. It made my heart happy. Jan and Steph slept in Jan's four-poster bed in her old room. Some kids slept in Brett and Paul's (and subsequently Kelly's and then the caretaker's) room; some slept in mom and dad's red-flocked wallpaper room. We had a big breakfast together then, with Riley's help, moved big furniture to the shop for temporary storage.
Paul Wheeler arranged for a 30-cubic yard dumpster to be placed on the property and we spent days filling it with items that no longer had use. Paul Ashton came with his truck and trailer and took two loads of wood back up to the mill shed. Several men came and took loads of wood - one was a shop teacher near Park City and he was thrilled to get free wood for his classes. Paul Ashton also hauled a trailer load of metal away to recycle. He has been a wonderful helper this past month. Brett came for a week and helped clear buildings of items. Lisa Wheeler Astling took hundreds of wooden craft items, finished many and gave them to the Festival of Trees. The proceeds will go to Primary Children's Hospital. We set items out at the curb with a FREE sign and almost every item was taken. I love the idea that mom and dad are still giving, still helping others, still sharing. They are useful things, these items, but we all have our own piles of things at our houses so sharing the excess has been wonderful!
Kathy Wheeler and her daughters Loni and Lisa came to clean the house. They cleaned every room and sorted photos and paperwork into boxes for each Wheeler kid (Brett, Paul, Jan, Kelly, Kaye). Brett, Paul, Jan and I spent hours looking through old photos, sorting them into decades and getting them ready for Paul to scan so we can each have copies. My friend Holly came over and helped rake leaves one day. Even though no one lives there, it still needs care. We let Dell and Steph take big items, like the stove and a bed, to their home.
Many things of mom's and dad's have found new homes with family and friends and for that I am grateful. I'm also grateful mom gave me some things throughout the years she knew I would love having like her pickle crock, her potato masher and her nice butter dish. I'll use those last two today since it is Thanksgiving, and I will think of her.
It has been a learning process for me, dismantling my childhood home and all that filled it. One thing I've learned is that I will let our material things go well before my children have to make the effort to do so. (I've already been purging our own house.) While it's been fun at times to look at nostalgic things, it's also been physically and mentally exhausting to have to deal with so much stuff. Another thing I've learned is that photos need to be labeled. We have hundreds of photos we can't identify.
The house is practically empty, ready to be listed for sale. I close my eyes and think of each room as it was a year ago - full of furniture and things familiar to my eyes, memory and heart. I cry, as I am now, that it's all gone. But I know we did the right thing. We were gentle and careful and mindful of mom's things. We did it together: siblings, children, friends. We kept good attitudes, had fun, laughed, remembered. It has been a wonderful home, a key gathering place for many memory-making events, a home to return to. The last thing I learned (or rather, re-learned) is that material things don't last forever - they aren't meant to. But emotional, spiritual things are meant to last and because of a loving Heavenly Father, they will.
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