Happy Hoarder Day # 6 The Ma in Many Feb. 20, 2015

  Happy Hoarder  Day # 6  Feb. 20, 2015
 A journey into cleaning up a big pile of..... hoard
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(photos still in the cloud - will post as soon as they arrive!)

                                                         The Ma in Many

                                             

                                                            by Janet S. Tiger   

                                                (c) 2015     all rights reserved

                                                      tigerteam1@gmail.com

My mother gave me many presents, physical - many, many physical! - and others, so many others, of the emotional and spiritual kind.

Why, as a writer, use the word 'many' so many times in one sentence?

Because  my mother is a many kind of person.  She has had many birthdays, and today is one of them.  Her 89th.  And I have many of her gifts in my life - my two children have her genetic material, which is sturdy and smart, and she helped us to buy our first house, where we lived for over a quarter of a century.

I wear dresses, and blouses and underwear and bathing suits she bought me (I hate to shop!) and my home is filled with gifts from over the years.  Too many to list in one tiny blog.  Too many.

Emotionally, she was strong, moving a family 3000 miles to a place where she knew no one and had no friends.  Within a few years, that had changed completely - her friends have numbered in the hundreds at times - before the years whittled down the list a bit, and she no longer is able to get around as well.  Two falls in the last few months - too many.

She has many things in her life that are good - three healthy children (physically - mental is a whole other story!) and two wonderful grandchildren who love her dearly.  She still has many friends - most younger now - and she is still able to walk and talk and read and laugh and eat her beloved Hagen Daz Dark Chocolate bars.  One a day because she doesn't want to overdo and never be able to eat them at all ever again.  (A good motto for many things)

And she has many…. things.  I mean a great many things.  Her house is filled with gifts of all kinds to be given to friends.....someday.  Books, and tchatchkas of all varieties - dusty mugs, out-of-date electronics, decaying plastic kitchen tools,  dust creased towels, deflated sports balls, out-of-style clothing in every size and shape for every possible friend she has now - and all the ones she will meet in the future.

And she has many, many, many containers.  Of all shapes and sizes. Washed and dried carefully for future preservation in the Smithsonian.  For food she will one day need to store.  Every shape and size - because before recycling became popular, my mother saved.  A child of the Depression is one excuse, but her family was not destitute then.  And that really can’t explain the saving of the twist n ties – which are free at every store, as are the myriad of plastic bags that adorn the kitchen surfaces not covered in containers.

And she has many, many magazines - and newspapers.  Stacks as high as a six year old.  (At one time, the stacks were only baby height, then toddler.  She reads a lot, but she will truly have to live to be a thousand to read all she has hoarded....I mean saved....and she would have to stop now.  Which she can't, because the books and magazines keep coming, like a tsunami of paper through the mail every day.  She subscribes for a good reason - she wants to win the Publishers Clearing House prize (PCH- also stands for Pretty Chancy Hoarding)  so she can leave to her family a legacy of many dollars. 

 You see, her heart is in the right place - unfortunately there isn't much space for anything else in that house!

So what is the reason for all these many things?  Doctors can debate, but the reality is what we live with, and we, the many who love her, are having to come together, to remove these precious, horrifying towers of crap, before they grow to King Kong size and fall and crush her some night as she heads to the kitchen for her midnight ice cream.

Sadly, I have inherited her hoarding gene.  So I try valiantly to rid myself of my garbage, while helping my siblings at Mom’s, and trying to retain the original, very decent reasons for becoming a hoarder.  As I like to call them - the ' road to hell' reasons- thrift (why buy something if you already have it) , generosity (so and so would just love this) and saving the planet (re-use, recycle.....regift)

It is a Herculean task - but my sister and brother and I are growing closer and laughing a lot because of it.  Because we can still laugh.  And, as a friend so aptly put it –‘who cares about the mess, you can always clean that up.  What would you rather have – a clean house and no Mom?’  And I know she is right.

So I wish my mother a ‘Happy Birthday’, and give her a gift that can be eaten (Mallomars, not the healthiest, but, oh, so happy-making) and will most certainly not be saved or re-gifted.  

To another year.......we lift our Mallomars (yes, she shares them) to toast the chances that come with the greatest gift...life.

Too maudlin?  I am saving my tears for another day.  For I may be able to save a lot of odds and ends – many odds and lots of ends – but no matter how I try, I just can’t hoard time.  It just slips out of that bottle…..so, Happy Birthday, Mom, and many, many, many  more.