Finders Keepers

My childhood home was a one-story, white-shingled farmhouse nestled in the middle of corn and soybean fields. Typical of homes built in the early 1900s, it was long on charm and short on space.

My mother was a “collector” — frugality impressed upon her as a child of the Great Depression made her save everything. With time, every tiny closet and cranny overflowed.

In my and my sisters’ decidedly unsolicited opinions, our parents needed to downsize as they aged. They needed room to maneuver safely. We took turns helping them re-organize, sorting through what to keep and what to let go. This often resulted in a tug of war between Mom and us. Her fierce determination to preserve potential “Antiques Roadshow” discoveries clashed with our desire to trash “Hoarders” castoffs.

Early one autumn, I visited Mom and Dad as she was recovering in a nearby nursing facility. My task was to reorganize a large floor-to-ceiling cabinet. She wanted final approval before anything was thrown away, so I started the re-org before seeing her later.

Dad, now long retired, rocked in his chair on the outdoor patio. Dry black walnut leaves from four ancient trees fell softly and geese flew over in formation. My husband joined him. They chatted while drinking steaming coffee in the crisp air.

Sleeves rolled up and hair pulled back, I tackled the bottom shelf, immediately inhaling years of abandoned cobwebs and forgotten dust. The first big bin was labeled “Creamers.” I prayed mice hadn’t held a tea party inside.

Stacked in the interior were thousands of tiny, used white creamer cups. For years, Mom and Dad would make weekly treks to town and stop for discounted senior coffee at McDonald’s. Apparently, she rinsed, saved, and stored the empty creamer containers.

Disappointment settled around me and my motivation waned. I’d been hoping for a mislabeled Picasso, since Mom was a regular at thrift shops and flea markets. If this was the first find, it was going to be a long day.

After several hours of being hunched over, it was breaktime. I straightened my sore back to shower, dress and drive to see Mom.

Arriving at the facility, I found my way down a long hallway adorned with grimy artificial plants and tilted wall hangings. My sneakers squeaked on the waxed linoleum floor, echoing off the walls. Finding her room, I spied her perched on a cracked leather recliner backed into the corner of the square cinderblock room, a frayed blanket around her slumped shoulders. She looked like she’d been put on a shelf herself.

Frail, hair thinned and gray, her eyes sparkled when she looked up. I leaned over to kiss her and caught a whiff of antiseptic mixed with coconut-scented lotion.

“Mom, I unearthed about ten thousand empty creamer containers,” I said, exaggerating for effect. “Do you really need those?”

Her face brightened. “Absolutely. Don’t throw those out, Wendy.” Even in her weakened state, she was still giving orders. Her priest often joked that when she got to heaven, St. Peter might need to step aside.

“They don’t really seem to be serving a purpose,” I said, gazing out the window at Canada geese strutting on the lawn. The man-made lake glittered in the sun, and I thought I’d rather be hiking than cleaning yet another dusty closet.

I turned back to her. The inflatable compression stockings on her legs whooshed softly.

“I’m going to make ornaments out of those,” she replied. “Christmas bells. With glitter, string and some holly.”

A heaviness settled on my chest. I knew if she ever got home, she wouldn’t have the strength to make creamers into Christmas bells.

“Do you really need thousands?” I asked, taking a deep breath, adding a trace of my teenage whine.

“You never know when you might need something. Don’t. Throw. Them. Away!”

Her pale, arthritic index finger wagged at me. My shoulders sagged. I’d have to find room for the creamers in an overcrowded closet.

Driving back to the farm after the visit, fields sped by in a blur and my eyes dampened as sentimental music played on the radio. What Mom saved was more than tiny plastic cups — it was a lifeline, a promise of a future. It occurred to me that wasn’t so different from the way we cling to our own thoughts and emotions.

I sighed. I hold onto things too. It’s a diverse collection — hurt when I need mercy, anger when I need forgiveness, and pain when I need healing.

In my medical practice, I’d seen the health toll of emotional stockpiling, but knowing the science hadn’t made it any easier for me to let go.

Emotional hoarding. Sadness, anger, grief, or pain — do we sort them and decide to hold on to them, just in case? Or do we let them go when they no longer serve a purpose?

The next day, nearly finished with the closet, I complied with Mom’s wishes and stowed the creamers. Satisfied with the rows of clean, labeled bins, I remembered a Buddhist teaching about coffee — and what we carry.

A monk asked his student, “If you’re carrying a cup of coffee and someone bumps into you, why did you spill the coffee?”

“Because someone bumped into me,” his student answered.

“No,” the monk replied quietly. “You spilled coffee because that is what you were carrying. If you carried water, you would have spilled water. If you carry fear, jealousy, anger, that is what escapes. If you carry love, kindness, joy, that is what spills from you.”

As I closed the closet door, hinges creaking, I realized that spiritual lesson fit. With many negative emotions jostling for space, there wasn’t a lot of room for the good stuff.

My medical training told me that moving on isn’t as simple as wadding up our thoughts and tossing them for two points into the nearest garbage can. Our brains are complex and wired for patterns. We have to re-program. Journaling, counseling, meditation, and sometimes even active acts of forgiveness and gratitude are useful cleaning tools.

I knew it was time to sort, dust, and reorganize my mental attic. Carry love. Spill joy.

And I hoped I would be seeing Christmas creamers on my parents’ tree that year.

Check out my other posts on lessons we can use when life throws us curveballs!

Learn more about kindness.

Need hope?

Reinvigorating dreaming.

What have you been holding onto? Please comment. I read everyone!