Sentimental Decluttering: An Oxymoron?
Like a geological formation, there are layers and layers of sentimental strata among my clutter
The leaves are magenta and gold, and the last extra kugel or pan of stuffed cabbage I forgot to serve on Simchas Torah and stuffed into the freezer has been consumed. Now lying in wait for me is that overwhelming “To Do After Yom Tov” list, or what the non-Jewish world calls “winter activities.”
I think I’ll bypass the ever-present “lose ten pounds, join a local exercise class, walk 10,000 steps a day,” and other ubiquitous annual goals.
Of course, I won’t ignore the spiritual growth items: Listen to a Shabbos halachah shiur online, review the weekly parshah, and maybe consider davening Maariv?
Moving on to the less esoteric items, I must change the summer clothes in the closet for winter clothes, get quotes to repaint the living room, and price new mattresses with pillow tops.
And of course, I must declutter. What’s with this continuous need to discard unused, dented, scratched, and possibly toxic pots and pans, and small appliances and gadgets like my make-your-own-yogurt machine or my super multi blade food chopper so simple to use that salads make themselves?
I have boxes and boxes of papers, pictures, art projects, report cards, scrapbooks, decorated jewelry boxes, Yom Tov projects — the time capsules of years gone by — to deal with. I always planned to implement an idea I read in a magazine and designate a box for each child’s mementos. Still, somehow the wooden jewelry box from my daughter’s first class trip to our national capital never really moved off my dresser. It sits next to the olive wood jewelry box my mother had on her dresser, made by the prisoners in Michigan’s Jackson State Penitentiary and gifted to her by my father, who was the first Jewish chaplain there. Needless to say, those items aren’t going anywhere.
Like a geological formation, there are layers and layers of sentimental strata among my clutter.
When my brother and his family made aliyah, I found myself the keeper of my parents’ memories. I’m not discussing several cases of books my father authored that was first kept in my parents’ basement and then in my brother’s. I’m talking about the many scrapbooks my mother, the eishes chayil of all time, created with any newspaper clipping that had to do with my father’s 50-year career in the rabbinate. Some of the clippings also contain the newspaper’s headlines, and they’re time capsules of modern Jewish history: Dreyfus Passes Away; Growing Antisemitism in Europe. There are also the positive headlines: The State of Israel Is Declared.
The newspaper clippings were yellowed and deteriorating, so I contacted someone who preserves old pictures and papers. For a mere $7,000 he would refurbish all these now-disintegrating records of my parents’ lives. Hmm, what about scanning them onto a website? Okay, definitely a winter project (which winter still to be determined)!
Then there are the boxes of letters my parents exchanged during their engagement period. I asked a sh’eilah, and the rav that I asked said, “No, you’re not permitted to read them.” I stood over the recyclables can and then put the box back on the shelf. Maybe I couldn’t read them, but I also couldn’t allow them to rot in some New York City sanitation landfill.
As the son who handled all his family affairs, my husband had boxes and boxes of my in-laws’ bank statements, letters, and correspondence in his office closet. What is the resale value of a deed for several acres of land in Sullivan County, which became the Ehrenpreis Bungalow Colony, dated 1945? My husband also took care of his maiden aunt’s affairs, so he had boxes of her statements from banks that probably went down in the Depression. You can’t just throw that out, I was warned. If there are Social Security numbers on the papers, desperate individuals who go through garbage dumps looking for identities to steal might find and recreate your deceased relatives! Really? Yes, all those papers must be shredded.
Now I’m looking at my son’s first report card, in which his rebbi wrote, “Chaim is an excellent student and will give you great nachas, but could he please finish his homework?” Then there are those wonderful homemade “Best Mommy Ever” birthday cards and “I Love You, Mommy” cards… the bar mitzvah announcements, and of course, mail from kids who were forced to write letters home from camp, literary masterpieces such as, “Camp is really nice. I really like my counselors. I need more canteen money.”
How can I dispose of any of this? Anyone who can identify with my quandary?
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 925)
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