My mother in-law has been in a nursing home for over a year now. We have finally convinced my sister in-law that it’s time to start clearing out the apartment, especially since the people who own the house are currently living upstairs, where MIL used to live and still want MIL to pay rent & the electric bill. (Long story but let’s just say the situation isn’t quite renter/landlord and it’ll be a cold day in hell that they’ll get any more money.)
Last weekend, Frank stopped by the apartment with his sister and came home with exactly one box. Clearly they needed a bit of help. This weekend, I went with them. We came home with 4 boxes and Frank’s sister went home with 2 more. It seems they spent more time last weekend looking through stuff rather than tossing stuff into boxes. For me, the idea is simple – grab every single paper and photo and throw it into a box.
This meant that I had a total of 5 boxes to sort through. Oh, and a giant plastic garbage bag stuffed with papers, as well. After the sorting, there is now 1 box filled with photos and half a box with important papers. The rest was junk. But, oh, let me tell you about the junk!
There were utility bills dating from the 70s. There were stacks and stacks of scrap paper because you apparently never know when you’re going to run out of paper. There were empty rolls that previously held paper towel or toilet paper. I have no idea why on earth why my MIL felt the need to save those. Maybe I could see if there were still little ones who ran around the house using them as bullhorns but otherwise… uh, no clue.
Then there was this:
I don’t know what’s in there. I’m sort of afraid to find out. I plan on waiting for Frank to get home because he hasn’t seen it yet. Then we will open it. I’m wondering if we should don rubber gloves and masks, though.
There were a few interesting items among the papers. Their dad kept the death certificates from his parents so I now am able to add a bit to the family tree. And we found out that my MIL’s name is not what we thought it was. The name she has been know by, Lucy, the one on her marriage certificate, is her middle name, not her first name. Her first name is actually the same as my mother’s: Maria. I wonder if we’ll find out any other family secrets.
