The Scent of a Life

We cling so tightly to this earth. We hold ‘things’ so dear. We save and store and display and fill our houses with the pieces of life along the way. This collecting is part of ‘hunting and gathering’ and preparing and protecting our families.

We pass our treasures along to our children and our children’s children. The little nuggets of wisdom, the stories, the history, the travels and conquests. The pictures, though tattered and torn and yellowed along the edges, speak for us after we are gone.

First hand, I know about letting go my tight grip on the ‘things’. That is not to say that I am any good at it. I am still shrieking and moaning about the losses. But I speak from a place of understanding how it feels to have to let go of the things that I loved and valued.

I confess that as I have walked the last years with my mama, that I have often criticized her obsessive need to keep things. I have judged and cleaned and thrown away. I have rolled my eyes and walked through her house all huffy and actually asked, while laughing, “WHY are you keeping THIS?!” She knew herself how bad she was, but as the years turned into ‘not remembering’ she got worse. She hid things, important things, because she was afraid of losing them or somebody stealing them. The daily searches for purses and phones and money, and more were no longer funny. I lectured her about trusting God and not being so fearful; about releasing her tight hold on the stuff. I quoted scripture and prayed with her…Really Betsy!?

Yes. I had become the lecturing parent and she the wayward child. She certainly eyed me with the look of disgust that I probably gave her when I was a teenager.

Things didn’t get better, even moved to a different, safer environment with less stuff. She hid her stuff there too, accusing the staff of taking her money. She even hid other people’s things thinking they were hers. So tight was her hold on the belongings she called her own.

When my mom began to lose interest in the things, I was alarmed. She really had no idea about her phone, her purse, her jewelry, anything. This was my first clue that she was done.

One day she told me to stop bringing things and to take her pictures home. I didn’t listen and I brought more. She just lifted her hand in an “I don’t care” manner.

As mom began to release her hold on life, things became clear to me.

In her effort to hang on and continue living, the grip got tighter and tighter to the point of complete mental dysfunction. But as the end drew nearer she tried to show me how to let go of all the things that seemed so important before.

Her ninety-four years in that body were about finished. She was releasing her hold even upon that.

I cannot let go. yet.

I am clinging to the scent of my mother on her sweater. I am holding tightly to the old familiar and worn shirts. I can’t remove my dad’s old shirts, that she had squirreled away in her dresser. Every step in her house causes me to cry and every photo a journey down a very long hallway in my memory.

Thank You Father God for showing me, for leading me along this weary path…no judgement, no condemnation, only love along the way.

A layer. A peeling and revealing of some greater truth is underway. Our lives do not consist of just this plane. It is NOT just the sweater but the fragrance of a life shared. There are whole lifetimes rolled up in the carpet of an old house.

How can we grow and learn and pass on the glimmer of truth we’ve received? I hold tight for now, but as the dust of ashes is released from my fingertips, let it be wisdom, grace, peace, and love that was the sum of the years.

"...lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." - Matthew 6:19-21