Dad’s sanctuary…his office

Three years before we moved to Spain, we started the tedious process of downsizing. With so many new storage facilities springing up in Federal Way at the time, it was tempting to rent a large unit or two to store our favorite furniture, Rocky’s essential kitchen supplies, our mountain of photo albums and all of our artwork.

No one would blame us because our future was uncertain, right? What if we didn’t like living in Spain? What if we ended up with grandchildren right away and could not stand to be that far away? What if we found we missed or NEEDED something we gave away? There were so many “What ifs?”

I wrote about our process of letting go in an earlier blog if you are curious: https://upanddowndog.com/what-is-really-essential/

Last week we were in Topeka, Kansas for my Dad’s memorial. He died in January this year, but this was the first time we could gather as a family to say our final good-byes. The memorial was unexpectedly entertaining. My siblings and I each took a turn sharing stories about Dad with a church full of his former parishioners and community members.

My brother and sisters and I did not talk to each other in advance about what we would say, so I thought we might have some overlap. As it turned out, we had such unique reflections that we could have been talking about 4 different fathers. My dad was a man of many interests over his more than eight decades of life. We discovered that each of us cherished something just a little different about our interactions with him.

Like many others who have lost an older parent, part of saying good-bye to our dad involved helping his wife Becky get rid of his STUFF. Dad was a collector. Others might say pack rat or hoarder but I’m going to remember him as a man with many treasures. He saved everything.

He also never did anything half way. If he started a new hobby, he got all the best equipment so he could do it right. When he decided to take us camping, he bought the best tent, sleeping bags, camp stove and stackable pan sets. When eventually he moved on to another hobby, as he often did, he kept all the things he accumulated from the activity he was no longer persuing, just in case he got interested again.

Dad was a voracious reader and loved to buy books. In fact, he didn’t have walls. He had bookshelves. We expected to go through his books and collection of CDs and vinyl records. We knew he loved listening to jazz, rock & roll and opera music almost as much as he loved reading.  He was also an avid stamp collector for as long as I can remember. In fact the stamp collection was supposed to “pay for our college tuition,” if I remember it correctly. Sadly, some collections just do not hold their value!

Dad, a devoted KU Basketball fan, video taped every game for at least the last 20 years. We opened boxes and boxes of videos he saved to watch again someday… or never. He loved to record the stats on each player while he watched the games and never considered throwing out those notes either!

A file folder with my name on it contained printed copies of all the emails I had written to him over the years! While I was touched that he thought them as worthy of saving as his beloved KU basketball videos, they all eventually went into the dumpster.

A loyal supporter of many non-profit organizations like Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and Save the Children, Dad received calendars, stuffed animals and dolls-of-the-world in gratitude for his donations to those organizations. Naturally, he saved all of them.

Initially, it was fun for the whole family to dig through his treasures, especially when we discovered things we were not expecting like baseball cards and old jewelry. We opened three jewelry boxes full of cuff links and tie pins, enough to outfit a room full of classy British gentlemen at the opening night of Puccini’s La Boheme.  We were shocked because none of us could ever remember him wearing cuff links. Had they belonged to his own father? No one will ever know.

The one treasure I remember the most was a jade ring Dad always wore. Just holding it in my hand last week made me burst into tears. Obviously, some pieces of the past can bring great comfort and are worth holding on to. Gratefully, my nephew Ian will have the ring resized to wear in memory of his Grandpa. Even Dad’s office, as messy as it is, feels like a sacred place where I can go to connect with him. Becky calls it her sanctuary and doesn’t plan to clean it out for a long time.

Every one of us walked away with a T-shirt from his huge selection, the closest thing we now have to getting one of his great bear hugs. Our boys picked out cuff links to wear someday for a special occasion, even though neither of them have the right kind of shirts yet, and his many watches also found new wrists to call home. Rocky chose two great-looking shirts from Dad’s vast collection of Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirts. My youngest sister, Chako, wants to make the rest of them into commemorative pillows. Hopefully her own kids are not going to find that same pile of Hawaiian shirts years from now and wonder why she saved them!

My brother, Fred, who is a Professor of Japanese History, took most of Dad’s Japanese books and all of his research on our family ancestory. Thankfully, Fred is our generation’s historian and the keeper of my Dad’s research so that we don’t have to be. He shipped at least six boxes of books and records to his office at the University of Pennsylvania. My sister Liz took my Grandmother’s tea service home because she lives close enough to drive it home.

Chako laughed when she discovered all of the “Congratulations-on-the-birth-of-your-daughter” cards Dad had saved in a box for her from over four decades ago. She also unearthed an old photo of my dad with Martin Luther King Jr. and civil right’s activist, Diane Nash, taken in 1965 around the time of the Selma Montgomery March that Dad participated in with John Lewis and MLK. Finding that genuine historical relic from his civil right’s days that we had never before seen made us all slow our searches down a little so as not to accidentally throw out something really important. Moments later Chako was rewarded with a 10,000 Japanese Yen she found stuck in a book, valued at just under $100.

Also at the bottom of Chako’s box of goodies was a letter written to my dad from my ex-husband, Tom, 37 years ago! Not only did I have no prior knowledge of this old letter, I could not imagine why Dad had kept it. In the letter, Tom irrationally blamed my dad for our divorce. After reading it, I realized my former English teacher dad, who had been known to send my letters back to me “corrected” with all misspelled words circled in red when I was young, was probably relieved that his daughter was no longer married to someone who couldn’t spell very well. Had he planned to show it to me at some point? The letter is now in the dumpster with the other useless stuff Dad dragged around with him through multiple moves.

The Topeka Goodwill received three big carloads of men’s clothes, including a fine collection of KU basketball T-shirts and sweatshirts. Kansas Public Radio took his vinyl records and the police department welcomed a large bag of stuffies and dolls to hand out to children experiencing trauma. We also filled a huge dumpster with old papers, KU basketball game video tapes and lots of other junk. (Sorry, Daddio!)

In Sweden there is a practice called, döstädning — a combination of the word “dö” (which means death) and “stadning” (which means cleaning). While döstädning has been a long-standing tradition in Sweden, especially for those over the age of 50, the excercise has received more worldwide attention since the publishing of a new book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter. (If you decide to buy the book, consider uploading it on your Kindle or buying a copy and then passing it on to a friend when you are finished with it. After all, it would be ironic to have a book on decluttering that was adding to your own clutter, right?)

According to the author, Margareta Magnusson, “Death cleaning is not about dusting or mopping up; it is about a permanent form of organization that makes your everyday life run more smoothly.”  “You may even find the process itself enjoyable,” she adds. “It is a delight to go through things and remember their worth.”

A recent NBC news article adds, “The benefit of death cleaning to your loved ones who won’t have to do it for you is fairly straightforward. But what about the happiness and enjoyment on your end? Psychology and sociology offer some interesting reasons why going through our possessions, paring down and cleaning out really can be helpful — and why it really might be prudent to not wait too long before jumping on the trend.” https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-swedish-death-cleaning-should-you-be-doing-it-ncna816511

Spending time with my family members while pouring through Dad’s various collections was relatively easy and fun for us. Each time we would unearth something surprising or funny, we’d run from room to room showing everyone who was working on another section of treasures. We laughed, we cried, we sneezed from lots of dusty old boxes and we remembered so many adventures with our dad. Even our son’s girlfriends got in on the action, looking at old slide collections through a viewfinder to find any must-keep photos and choosing books they might want to add to their own libraries.

Unfortunately though, because my siblings and I do not live nearby, the bulk of the work will fall to Becky, who will have to continue to sift through his filing cabinets, papers, photos, books and a lifetime of momentos long after we’re home. She said repeatedly that she is now inspired to go through her own things, as well, so as not to leave her own sons with a mountain of her STUFF when she is gone.

The day after returning to our apartment in Spain, I started shoving old shoes, T-shirts and clothes I’m no longer wearing into a bag to take to a near-by donation box. Even though we arrived here with only five suitcases in March of 2021, we have slowly started to accumulate new things. I needed the wake-up call of combing through my dad’s things to keep me inspired to live more simply.

Like my father, I have always liked paper and books. Before we left Tacoma, I gifted my yoga books to other yoga teachers and yoga students and we donated the rest of our books to the library. We scanned all important papers and thousands of photos which left us with a digital file and then we shredded all the originals.

Shredding photos and documents was probably the most terrifying part of letting go. It definitely required a glass of wine in order to accomplish it. Like any other addiction, I have to work at not slipping back into accumulating paper and books. I now curl up with my Kindle to read at night and use a bamboo business card with a QR code on it to share my contact information with clients. Nothing will replace the feel of holding a real book though, so when I do indulge, I donate the book when I’m finished with it. As I place it into the donation bin at the library, I say with a dramatic flaire, “Bye-bye!” or now more often, “Adios!”

Not owning as much stuff allows me to feel lighter, more mobile, and less tied-down. Opportunities to travel, write, read and explore feel more readily available. We don’t spend money on parking, car insurance, or car payments because we no longer own a car. Walking everywhere has improved our health as well as our finances.

Is there anything that we let go of that I miss?  Yes. I miss you. I miss my family, friends and community.

Yet, I have no regrets. We have to work harder to stay connected now, but when we do get together, each minute is more precious. The awareness that we live far away reminds me not to take our time together for granted.

On our recent trip back to the States, I found myself stopping many times to take in the moment; to stare at my boys laughing with their girlfriends; to feel the hugs or enjoy a walk with my friends; to share stories and tears with my brother and sisters; to absorb each memory so I could savor it again later like my favorite butterscotch candy. In letting go of all of our stuff, I feel like we made more room in our hearts for what was most important: the people in our life.

Notes from the author:

Ready to start your own death cleaning or de-cluttering process? Here’s an article that makes it simple: https://www.bystored.com/blog/swedish-death-cleaning

Want your own bamboo business card so you don’t have to carry multiple business cards with you anymore? https://v1ce.co/

Like us, you may find you have more energy to travel once you are not tied down by your STUFF! If so, join us for our next exciting retreat in Puglia, Italy https://globalyogatrips.com/puglia-italy-walking-yoga-retreat/or Chamonix, France! https://globalyogatrips.com/chamonix-france/