My memoir-writing classes don’t meet during the Jewish high holy days (the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) but that doesn’t mean these seniors stop writing!! I was so moved by this email Hugh Brodkey sent yesterday that I asked if I could share it with you Safe & Sound blog readers.
Hi, Beth,
At temple for the Jewish New Year, our rabbi made a couple of comments that I realized might suggest writing assignments.
He started off by saying that he had recently been helping his mother downsize in order to move into a senior residence. She had lifetime collections of letters and greeting cards from her family and kids as they were growing up, many, many family pictures and a major collection of decorative pill boxes.
What do you move, and what do you give away? If you decide to give it away, who wants it? If nobody wants it, what happens to it? (This last point struck a chord with me. When my Dad died, he left an office where the walls were covered with framed awards and testimonials. We couldn’t figure out what to do with them.)
The rabbi’s sermon then shifted to the current crises of flooding and forest fires and earthquakes in which thousands of people are told that they have only a few moments to decide what to carry out with them to safety. Almost invariably it was the family pictures and mementos…most of which had no value to anyone but themselves.
What does that say about how we live our lives…or how we should live our lives? What is more important in our lives than what? Hope we never have to make such important quick decisions……and that you and your family have a peaceful New Year!
Best…Hugh
Thanks for sharing this! Good to reflect on these questions.
You’re welcome, Linda, and thanks go out to you for assigning such good prompts to your class at Center for Life and Learning at Fourth Pres — I keep track of them (or guess what the writing prompt might have been!) by enjoying the essays writer Regan Burke publishes on her Back Story Essays blog.
That was a touching and enlightening essay by Hugh. Thanks!
Beth did have us write an essay about what we would save if we had to leave immediately. … not to include a person or pet. Very hard decision. Also made me realize how unimportant so many of my things are. They only have value to me for their memories, comfort or pleasure.
Hmmm. I fear I may be more materialistic. Anything that gives me comfort and/or pleasure is pretty valuable to me!
This did strike home, Beth. It’s exactly what I am going through now and it’s not easy. I’ve kept things I know I shouldn’t have and inadvertently given away things I shouldn’t have, and I probably sold things I shouldn’t have and I’m I not quite done yet.
I’m currently working through my house, following the prompts from the book by Marie Kondo, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up. She suggests that we should get rid of anything that does not “spark joy” in our lives. I love the concept, although after 35+ years in the same house, it is packed to the gills with things I thought “might come in useful sometime,” or that were connected to family in some way. I keep my eye on the end result–living in a house where everything I see, touch, and use, makes me happy in some way. Some family photos are worth keeping, but not the multiple shoe boxes stuffed with snapshots of the kids. No one really wants those. At the moment I am enjoying the process and I have eliminated (donated or recyled as much as possible) an amazing amount of stuff and I’m not half done.
Thanks for raising the question, what should we keep, what let go. Are we going to live in the past or into a future of joy?
Yes, it’s somewhat of a dilemma in ‘downsizing. I have been doing it in small bites….and lots still to do. Somehow, with Roy’s memory failing I feel more inclined to ‘keep his memory in hard copy. To remind the kids who their father was or is. Hmmmm
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