A year to let things go... she said

My mom gave me my grandmother's diamond earrings today. The posts are ribbed, the backs have to be screwed on, a safety net so they won't fall off accidentally. As I attempted to put them on this afternoon, I remembered being a little girl, watching my mom put on her jewelry, and how she always reaches her arm behind her head to put on her earrings. I still have never seen anyone else do it the same way.

This little thing, this small piece of family that she has been holding on to, was passed to me. It made my heart quicken and thud heavier in my chest.

"I am not ready for this"... I thought...

I am not ready for her to pass on family items because I don't want her to give them up yet.

She talked about going back to Indiana to get the final boxes out of storage that were from my grandmother's house. She talked about finding the winter coat of her brother in the bottom of a keepsake box in her mom's closet.

Her brother died ten years before she was born, of cerebral palsy. We didn't even know the cause of his death till after I had Alex. Skeletons in the families closet, next to small winter coats.

She wondered out loud to me over coffee and tea, What to do with that coat? I could only say to keep it, because it was family. In my mind, I can see my grandmother in her closet, folding away her son's winter coat, memory keeping because he was gone and would need it no longer.

I am not ready for her year of letting things go. I don't know how to handle the ghosts in objects that she is ready to release to me. I don't want to think of mortality, not yet.