The one thing I haven't been able to do is manage my own stoop sale. I've come close. A few weeks ago, I carried the last of my mother's dresses to a friend's stoop. These were Mom's best items —strong taffetas and feathered collars, cream brocade and lavender chiffon. My mother was elegant, whether she was in a tailored suit or her limp blue bathrobe. I tried to remind myself of this as I watched, from the park across the way, for hours, those dresses wilt on the cement stair. The sidewalks were crowded with iced coffees and farmers' market gladioluses. Nobody even glanced at my mother's finery.
"C'mon," I finally said to my 2-year-old daughter. I pulled her out of the swings. "I'm going to show you Grandma Joanie's dresses."
Grandma Joanie is just a name to my daughter. Even when I show her pictures, there is no perfumed hug or ice cream afternoon to make her a real person. And those dresses were equally meaningless to her. Empty pieces of hot fabric that were once worn by the most important person in my life. For all my hours with Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings on letting go, I still hold on tightly sometimes, whether I want to or not. I still think her stuff is as sacred as her memory.
I did not buy back my mother's things.
I did not pick up her skirt that was dusting the sidewalk.
Instead, I bought a new/used raincoat for $10, put my daughter on my shoulders, and walked us a new route home.
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