Keep. Donate. Toss.

Inheritance. It will usually make you think of a perfectly planned will. Money. A house. But what about all of the stuff inside the house?

Sure, you’ll think of a certain piece of china that caught your eye growing up. But I highly doubt you’ll think of the 15 tubes of lipstick piled up in the bathroom drawers. Or the hamper of dirty clothes filled from the week before.

Every sock. Every chicken scratch notepad. Every half used bottle of hairspray… Inheritance.

Mom and Bruce had only been married for nine months. That wasn’t much time to collect many “co-owned” items. So that left me to take only what I knew was Mom’s. The house had belonged to Bruce, so it was really just a matter of gathering anything she mingled in since October. The big things were easy to spot – a bedroom set, a china cabinet, a jewelry stand, and an extensive willow tree angel collection. Then came the task of spotting the smaller items…

Anything Disney was automatically claimed – if you know, you know. Most of the seasonal decor was from her personal stash. And then, of course, she left behind a hoarder’s supply of clothes, shoes, and bags.

The house was being sold just a few months after their deaths, so things had to move quickly. There wasn’t much time to sit around and work through the “Keep. Donate. Toss.” system. We basically came in on Sundays after church, threw things into boxes, and hauled them off to our storage unit.

I also had a classroom full of supplies Mom had assembled over the course of her 29 year teaching career. It was chaos, to say the least. The school year was about to start, and Mom’s classroom needed to be prepped for a new teacher. Thank you, LORD, for her co-workers and my precious friend, Becka. They came in, boxed up the essentials (and then some), and off to storage it went.

It’s funny, really. You constantly hear the warning, “Don’t make any rash decisions during the first year of grief.” But I didn’t have a year. Time was not on my side. Rash decisions were the only decisions I had to make.

Now that time has passed, I catch myself looking back on those months with regret. I’ll think of a certain decoration or book and wish I had spent more time searching for it. I’ll think of a particular glass dish and wonder if I overlooked it at the house.

Do I wish I would have paid more attention searching for Mom’s belongings? Yes. Do I wish I would have been more intentional about the things I kept instead of just doing a “throw and go” in the storage unit? Absolutely. It sure would have made sorting through it now a whole lot easier.

That’s the thing about grief, though. You can’t get it all right. Your mind is clouded. Your heart is in distress. Your perception is limited. But you do the very best you can with what you know at the time… And that has to be enough.

So here I am, roughly a year and a half later, sorting through my mom’s life in boxes. “Keep. Donate. Toss.”

It’s been extremely overwhelming. When you closely knit memories into physical possessions, it’s hard to let go of anything. Every time an item ends up in a bin, I question if it’s the right decision. “But should I keep that for the girls to look at one day? Will I ever lose enough baby weight to fit in her jeans? Will I regret not having that bracelet she wore three times?”

When I shared this burden with my friends last week, they gave me some pretty liberating words of encouragement. “Your home does not have to be a memorial site for your mother. You are living, breathing proof of your mom’s life and existence and love.”

Those words set me free. It was as if the words gave me the permission I needed to start letting go of the physical. Because the reality is – no amount of stuff will ever bring my mother back.

Now, by no means am I advocating for getting rid of every single thing tied to your loved one. I’m much too sentimental for that. What I AM advocating for is that you don’t spend so much time trying to keep their memory alive through possessions.

Matthew 6:19-21 says,

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

When my time is up and I stand before my Savior, He won’t be looking at how many of Mom’s tshirts I saved or how many willow tree angels I passed down to the girls.

He will be looking at what I did for Him. How did I point people to Christ? How many seeds did I sow for eternity? How often did I show His love? How boldly did I proclaim His Word?

THAT is what matters. Eternity.

On August 6, 2023, I’m confident my mom heard, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” So I can’t think of a better way to honor her life than to make sure I live for my Lord the same way she did every single day.