Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend was a busy weekend for us. I traveled to Millinocket so that we could have my Dad's interment service at the cemetery, and at the same time we buried my Auntie "M". While her real name was Harriett, I called her Auntie "M" because for much of her life she lived in Massachusetts. It was a very nice service and essentially we "killed two birds with one stone". Okay, that was gauche, but you all know me...and that's exactly what we did. I was surprised at the number of people that were there but I guess I shouldn't have been. There were some of Dad's friends that had not been at the funeral because they were in Florida at the time he passsed, and of course the family. Dad's cousins, my cousins on both sides of the family because Auntie "M" was Mom's older sister, and of course my sister and her hubs, as well as the remaining aunts and uncles.

Spent the week after finishing up the cleaning out of their home. I don't know how many contractor bags of trash we moved out of the house but there were a significant number. My sister took a fair amount of "treasures" to sell in a yard sale (I HATE having yard sales), I packed up some for our Christmas Sparkles fair, and some of course we saved. It seems strange that 80 years of life comes down to what is left that can be put in boxes, sold, trashed, or given to Goodwill. While my sister was there helping me sort through stuff, we were able to laugh at many things, marvel at the amount of bric-a-brac collected over 60 years, and we even had a few surprises. When I was alone with Art on Thursday morning, getting ready to come back to Portland, it felt strange to be leaving my childhood home for what might be the last time. So many memories, both good and bad. A bit of nostalgia as I remembered running down the stairs going to our bedrooms, carrying my sister (she was 2- I was 9), falling, and having her look at me and say, "that was fun! Can we do it again?" The back porch, the front porch....the basement seances, Julie and I watching the boys drive up and down the street from the kitchen and of course jumping up to see who it was every 5 minutes. It made for an interesting and thoughtful drive back to Cumberland that day, believe me.