Cluttered with People

My house is cluttered with people. Not the people themselves, of course. But, like many seniors who’ve lived a long, busy life, my husband and I have a home cluttered with memories—unfortunately for us, memories in the shape of things larger than old photos. “How can you stand living in such a mess?” a younger cousin asked one day. We shrugged.

As the years pass quickly and occasionally slowly, our spaces gradually filled. Each item represents someone we love who may or may not still be here in physical form. A few things are antiques, but they aren’t treasures simply because they might bring a good price. The most precious items arrived directly from someone’s heart to ours. Often, they look like stuff to others. Even if they are, we don’t care. Just looking at them recalls a person gone from our daily lives.

My sister gave us many nice things after my mother died, but they aren’t as dear. They weren’t sent directly to us as a token of love. They were simply left over. Our treasures meet strict guidelines. My Lakota friend gave us a ceramic wind chime that wouldn’t survive a single summer outdoors in our brutal winds, so it hangs in our stairwell. My grandmother crocheted tiny baby clothes for my tiny plastic baby doll. Our daughter and her husband gave us pieces of hand thrown pottery that are cracked now from the little earthquakes our house has suffered. But we wouldn’t part with them.

Our crystal candelabras were a wedding gift to my mother-in-law that she gave to us to keep in our dog-toenail-tortured china cabinet, formerly hers. They rest beside the corsage our daughter made for me to wear to her wedding. A dear friend laboriously painted a ceramic Merlin figurine just for me after hours at one job. My husband’s best friend from school gave him a pair of beer steins from a deployment in Germany. His wife shared her great aunt’s ring with me, that happens to fit precisely. I hope she and her aunt both see how much I adore it. Our son bought me a pair of earrings the color of my eyes some days. A neighbor refinished an antique desk chair as a gift because I needed one that didn’t kill my back, and I still use it. A friend helped my husband and me outfit a basement office, while other friends commemorated my husband’s contributions as a volunteer fireman with a plaque and small fireman statuary. We have a shell from New Zealand and an emu from Australia.

Yes, our home is cluttered with all that and much much more. What we’ll do when we can’t live independently any longer, I don’t know. Most memories don’t transfer. They’ll lose animation as we do. They stand now as proof of how emotionally wealthy our lives have been. They’re examples of what our present government doesn’t comprehend or value about our country’s history, the many lives, sacrifices, and joys spent building it to date—the fact that our history is all of us, not simply the leaders or white people, not merely the happy times but also the times when we needed one another to survive. We the people made our homes and our country. We don’t have to have our beloved belongings to remember, but they vibrate with unconditional love when we touch them.