Hello All -

I've popped onto the board quite infrequently in the past month or so, because there has been so much going on IRL.

T and I continue working, and I am specifically limiting my sessions to childhood, inner child and family history. Through all of this, T and I have hit some hard spots, usually due to some external event. They have been very difficult, but I have tried to trust my faith in T and brave through it. There does remain some lingering discord regarding the handling of time and money. I choose not to stay stuck there, because I want to continue with work that is important to me. Plus, I know the issue will rise again, and perhaps we'll get a bit farther through it at that time.

The Kid and FOO stuff parallels (and is probably fed by) the work I have been doing at Mom's house to get ready to sell it. This past week has been a boo-hoo-fest, as I look, once again, at the linens, the dishware, the papers, the tea pots. Tuesday evening was the day I had to have everything out of the house that I or my sister wanted. The estate sale company is now putting a price on the remains of my mother's life. Unless I want to "buy back" an item, I have officially said goodbye to a part of her life. Goodbye to the set of dishes my mother cherished, because her mother loved them and worked so hard to get. Through all the years, these dishes were valuable pieces. Only in researching market value did I learn that they really aren't that special. The "value" they had through the years was created by the appreciation we had for them. Now, as I close the door on this set of Fostoria dishes, I feel like I am betraying my grandmother who was a woman of limited means and who was so proud of using these dishes to serve cake and coffee to the ladies.

Most of Mom's papers I've put into storage for later review, but even the few I've sorted through lately bring tears to my eyes. I looked through bills my mom saved from when I was in private middle and upper school. I know the expense was her (and my father's) gift to me, regardless of the sacrifices it meant for them. I hated my parents then, and it all makes me so sad now.

At the same time, I am making the final repairs and cosmetic touches that will, hopefully, make the house a desirable sale. As I rip up old asbestos tile and lay down new, I find myself in tears...wondering why I didn't do these things for my mother while she was alive so she could experience the pleasure of a nicer home.

Then there are the pictures. The photographs of family vacations. Both my mother and father took a lot of photos, so most of my childhood was well documented. When I was about ten, they switched from prints to slides. The large case of slides I opened last week had been damaged by water and half of them were irretrievable. I cried for that loss, too. I set up the slide projector and looked at pieces of my childhood - little snippets of time through my adolescence (a miserable time) including some fun and happy times.

I am talking about all of this with T in sessions and crying about it again. Everything has some meaning, some history, and I am crying for all of it. I find myself wandering through the house, looking at and touching things. Now, seeing the tables pile up with memories that are now things with price tags. Things that will be pawed and examined, the buyer wondering if $7 is too much to pay for the hard work of my mother and of her mother before her.

At the same time, I also remember the painful things, the things that kids don't deserve but bear the brunt of anyway. These are a different kind of tears, but still those of loss. I am grateful I have been able to recognize my parents did the best they could and that we were able to create a better relationship as we all aged. I never had an intimate relationship with either of them, but I learned to see them as people, flawed as we all are, and I we were able to arrive at a civil, friendly place. T says it's good I was able to have that with each of them (in very different time and space). Without it, she says, it's harder to move on and to find the closure one needs.

Today, I am grateful that T listened, cried a bit with me, showed compassion and hugged me at the end when I asked. She usually says, "good, I could use one too," and that makes me feel even more connected. And then another hug in the parking lot after we walked out to our cars together, me still crying. "You are doing this," she said. "You are doing this hard thing and you are making it. You can be proud of yourself for that." Yes. I AM doing it.

-RT