Unloading the Apt

Unloading the apartment my mother occupied for more than 60 years, I uncover bits and pieces of family history tucked into every nook, cranny, crack and crevice: the hospital statement for my delivery at birth, my father’s honorable discharge for service during WWII, the statement from the Casablanca hotel in Miami Beach where my parents spent their honeymoon.

Heating pads discovered in three separate closets suggest no one knew of one when purchasing another, a pattern of behavior repeated with various other items and small appliances found in duplicate or triplicate. There are also abundant supplies of toilet paper amassed in the early days of the pandemic when such panic was squarely underway.  (Note: you can’t spell pandemic without p-a-n-i-c.)

Taking photos to preserve memories of details taken for granted for a lifetime but soon to be gone forever. The ornate bronze shield framing the keyhole on my mother’s dresser, the silver mezuzah nailed to our doorframe containing a miniature scroll of the Ten Commandments, the Swee-Touch-Nee tea tin in which my great grandfather stacked his sugar cubes.

Artifacts unearthed among envelopes of envelopes, bags of bags, and boxes of boxes. Ephemera I am encouraged by some to just throw out yet advised by others to parse through for irreplaceable treasures that tell stories that can never otherwise be conveyed.

Throughout the excavation, my mother’s voice persists in my head, cautioning me to check every canister, cereal box and fanny pack for cash and jewels stashed in unlikely places not to be discarded. “Use it to pay for my funeral.”