Reflections on death and stuff

About a week before Christmas, Sweet Hubby and I flew to Santa Barbara to say our final good-bye to Chris, my brother's wife.  She had been diagnosed with cancer five years ago and given a two year prognosis, and although she had beat the odds and lived several more mostly good years, it was clear that this was going to be her last.

Chris was someone who was able to talk openly about how she was feeling, what she was thinking about, how this journey has affected her sense of herself.  These last few years have been for her a process of letting go: letting go of things, of relationships, of long-held spiritual beliefs, of all kinds of attachments.  We had several conversations with her which lasted as long as her waning energy allowed.  Finally, it came time to say good-bye and walk out the door, knowing it was our last time to be with her.  I had to work on my own sense of attachment, my own hard, reluctant letting go of someone who has been a central figure in my life for about a quarter of a century.

I came away from that precious good-bye reflecting on how much I hold onto that is completely unnecessary.  Mostly I have reflected on the things, the stuff, that clutter my life.  I've got a huge box of photograph prints, for example.  I don't look at them, have no intention of organizing them into albums. Those who have to clean up after me, my nieces and nephews, aren't going to want any of them.  Why do I keep it all?

I will admit that a lot of what I've held onto, such as photos, journals and diaries, etc. I've kept because of the crazy notion that someday I will be famous enough that someone will want to write my biography and will need research materials.  Finally, at 73, I'm ready to give up on that fantasy.  Time to let go of these useless things.

Useless yes, but also precious in a certain way, because they are the evidence of the unfolding of my life, of my evolution as a person, of the experiences I've had.  But it's time for me to acknowledge that this evidence is precious only to me.  And so I avow here and now that one of the major projects for this new year will be to let go and let go and let go.  It's clear to me that I will not be diminished in any way by no longer having these boxes which give evidence of my life, because the evidence doesn't matter.   What matters has been, is being, the living of this life.  

Chris died the day after Christmas.