Throwing Away the Past

Chicago had some incredible rain totals a couple of days in a row. Unfortunately, the sewer systems couldn't handle the amount of rain that accumulated so quickly and many basements and backyards flooded in both the city and suburbs. The basement in Mom's house took in about a foot of water and her backyard (and my tomatoes!) were underwater for a day. Luckily, the water in our basement receded fairly quickly. However, there is still a massive clean-up to undertake.

Mom is a saver. She keeps mementos from our childhood, family vacations, weddings, graduations, etc. She also keeps clothing. Her reasoning for keeping clothing is that she will have a garage sale someday. So far, that hasn't happened. My point? We have lots of boxes stored in the basement.

The majority of the boxes that are stored are kept off the ground. We have flooded in the past, so we've learned to keep most items on shelves, etc. However, when I returned to Chicago, I added a dozen or so boxes to the storage. Shelving was at a premium, so some boxes ended up near the ground. Still on shelves, but on the bottom shelves. Bummer.

The good news is that the majority of the water was in the back of the basement (near the front of the house) and we had most of the boxes above the water line. However, we have some furniture back there (recliners, mainly)and those got wet. The room that housed my boxes got about 6 inches of water, but that was enough to saturate the boxes on the bottom shelves. I lost some incredible cookbooks, some awesome mementos from past adventures, and some reading material/papers from my MBA program. That was thrown out immediately. End of story for me. Discard and move on.

Mom had a more difficult time throwing her ruined items away. She wanted to look at each item before discarding it. Each piece of paper. Each card. Each magazine. Each church bulletin. Yes, she saves some strange things (in my opinion). Most items were things that she could eventually throw away. She enjoyed reading the notes from family members that she had saved. I guess it was a way to relive that relationship or experience. She took longer than I did to discard all her ruined items, but we both got to the same place eventually. I guess that's what really matters.