The great flatware reunion
I spent several hours today getting rid of things in my ex’s place. That simple statement doesn’t even begin to express what it feels like to do this. My ex was very sentimental about things and nostalgic about time, and he saved almost everything. I knew that, if he predeceased me, I’d have to be part of the dismantling of his precious things (only a few actually worth anything in dollars, but all of which meant a great great deal to him).
It feels like a betrayal, although I know it’s not.
But I thought our son would be more involved. Although he tried to be – he came here for a week – he came down with the flu and was very sick the whole time he was here. One other family member came for a few hours. And next week my brother and sister-in-law will come for two days. I’m grateful for any help at all, but this is such a huge task that I would need a lot more help than that to even make a dent in it.
I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve hired a friend who does this for a living. But there’s only so much she can do, and she can’t go through papers. Only I can do that, and the amount of paper is overwhelming. Boxes and boxes, shelves and shelves, and many suitcases full. I started today on the paper and got an immediate headache. I’m not going through each piece, but even a general perusal takes time.
I found, for example, a cache of my credit cards from the 1980s. Old medical records from the 1950s. The blueprints for the house we bought as a married couple, which was built in the 1930s. And on and on and on.
But one thing that made me happy was opening a drawer and seeing the flatware. I knew it was there, of course. When we separated about twenty-five years ago, we divided the flatware into two halves and each got six place settings. It was beautiful, heavy flatware (we never got silver) and I always loved it. And now – opening that drawer made me gasp, because I realized the set would be together again.
And so it is. It seems symbolic to me. Our divorce was always a sorrowful thing, necessary but tragic. Suffice to say I never stopped loving my ex-husband, although the love changed.
NOTE: The flatware, in case you’re interested, is called Lauffer Magnum and it was made in Norway. Later it got taken over by other companies and an inferior version was made. Google AI has this to say:
Lauffer Magnum is an original mid-century modern stainless steel pattern designed with a satin finish.
Key Details
• Material and Finish: 18/8 stainless steel with a sleek satin finish.
• Design Style: Bold, minimalist mid-century modern aesthetic.
• Collector Sentiment: Most users on Reddit agree that the original Norwegian-made sets are more desirable and higher quality compared to later or alternative regional productions (such as those from Japan or Korea).
It’s not really about the flatware, though. Not at all.
My FiL saved every piece of mail, with the envelope. Burned papers for a week , maybe 2 weeks.
Maybe that flatware might be a small shining moment everything will come together. I hope so for you Neo.
Very touching, neo.
Continuing prayers of condolence for your grieving.
Hope you have a shredder !! If not – get one!!! I’m sort of in a similar situation – except it’s _my_ stuff that will have to be disbursed! Of course, that’s because my Mom and Dad collected stuff and it ended up with me when they died. My Dad traveled a lot, and when he was out and about, he bought stuff to bring home. So…I have a complete set of B&G Christmas plated – 1895 to 1995 plus other random B&G plates that my Dad bought. My kids don’t seem to be interested. I have boys – and their wives just aren’t interested. Also 2 or 3 complete sets of antique china dinnerware. Sitting nice and safe in my storage shed!! Used to be that it was customary to have dinner parties with 6 or 8 guests. No more!!! So…I’ve started looking for some company that sells this stuff – but haven’t found any yet ! Times sure have changed !
A small moment of joy in the midst of all this sorrow is a great blessing.
@SueK
I buy retired tableware from Replacements.com. I don’t know how it works to sell collections to them, but they buy that kind of thing.
My sympathy on what you are dealing with.
My wife lost her mother and her daughter within months of each other last year, and she is still dealing with what they left behind, often in tears.
What a great heart you have, not only because you love your ex-husband despite divorce and whatever that entailed, but have kept your compassion, humanity, vulnerability and strength, and ability to express it all in such approachable ways. Prayers for you in this and all you do.
I went through the house after my Wife died. Well, actually she helped because a week after she died, our subdivision was having a subdivision wide garage sale. She told we what to put out and I did. Clothing mostly, and the stuff she set aside I also put out. Then, things went to consignment store (kind of a mistake), and then I found out about an Auction place. I put a lot there. VetnamVet and Habitat got a lot.
Then there was the trash, lots of trash. We traveled a lot and had acquired a good bit. I still have a lot – 2 set of China, lots of crystal glass ware, Chinese Figurines we bought in China. Furniture went, some to Auction. But a lot of the furniture I could not sell or give away – no one want it. So I paid someone to come and take it to the dump. This was very good quality items, but I had no need for it. My whole philosophy was “If I died tomorrow, it would be sold or dumped, so do it now”. The money wasn’t a lot, but My income was less than half of what our combined income was. I have my memories of things. And pictures on my computer keep sliding through so I see a lot of places we went. Pictures of my Wife come up, and yes even after 14 months I cry. A lot of remembrances. We built this house in 1978. I still find things, no value but things I will never use. No value really, so trash it goes.
Shirehome, I still cry once in a while for my mother, who has been gone 44 years now. It’s okay to cry, unless it’s all day all the time after 14 months.
With the move from CT to FL we managed to get rid of a lot of stuff. My wife has a very hard time giving up anything so there was lots of heated arguments. What helped was our daughters coming and telling her that they would not be happy having to deal with a pile of crap after we’re gone.
My rule is that if it hasn’t seen daylight in 5 years, we dont need it. Again, a source of great friction. Sigh….
We down sized a couple of times over the years and before we sold our house in Dallas and moved to the Hilly Country I had to dispose of over a decade of business records and sales slip from our store. It was a whole lot of stuff and I looked up the number of a commercial shredder operation and loaded up hundreds of pounds of boxed documents that we no longer needed to retain. The cost was reasonable, I backed my SUV up to a loading dock. They unloaded and I watched as they threw my boxes into a huge machine that chewed them up into shredded confetti. It took about three minutes to shred what would have been days for me to use our little shredder that overheated at times.
The other thing we have done is give away lots of treasure type stuff to our kids, crystal, silver ware, collector plates and things that seem to have some value to them and we don’t need in our 1,200 square foot house. I have also given away some of my guns to my kids and today when my grandson came by I gave him a couple more guns, a rifle and a shotgun and I need to clear out a lot more of them that I probably won’t be shooting again. I no longer hunt deer and I have six or seven deer rifles, I am down to two shotguns, both over/unders, a 20 ga and a 28 and that’s from my high count of shotguns years ago when I had a dozen and no idea why it was a good idea at the time.
Reading about your task Neo has me thinking about getting rid of stuff so my kids don’t have to make decisions in a few years from now when my time is over. Prayers and blessings for you and your son Neo as you deal with this tragedy.
I feel for you, having dealt with other people’s accumulated papers before, and now my own. Given what you descibe, it would take far too much time and emotional and physical energy to review the papers in a way that you feel (at this moment) is necessary to do them and your ex justice. Steal yourself to hiring a shredding service, and at most give a quick scan of papers as you toss them into the bin. If you can’t do that, box it all and put it in storage until you are emotionally prepared to have it shredded.
78 is just 2 wks away for me and I’ve begun to think about the physical burden my daughter will face in dealing with my possessions and legal details at my passing. I’m in apparent good health but consider it my duty to do what I may to ease that burden for her. Accordingly, a will and the preemptive disposal of personal possessions of what I consider to be unlikely to be of value for her and others close to me is, the least I can do for them. Now, I simply have to act preemptively in following through on that realization.
Flatware reunion is great. After sadness recedes, flatwear will bring smiles and good memories.
Talked wife into giving one of her prized crystal bowls to oldest step daughter. Daughter sent it back saying she doesn’t want any old stuff. Didn’t realize the gift was more than the bowl, it was letting go of something very important to mom .
A daughter was visiting from out of state, staying with friends. At my house she asked if she could have the 2 pictures hanging on the wall that Great Grandma had painted decades ago. NOPE, I will put your name on them for when I die.
I called her the next day at her friends house and told her come and get them. Figure it is practicing giving away stuff that is hard to let go of.
Re: The great flatware reunion
neo:
That has the feel of a seed to a fine poem.
Empathy Neo.
I keep telling myself that you just have to be ruthless.
Greeting cards 20 years old. Sentimental value?
Bank statements almost as old. No sentimental value.
I think I wore out my shredder. What has to be shredded? Probably have to go commercial.
Boxes of books have been donated to a local used book store.
Begging family to please at least look at them. Not happening.
Many boxes to go.
The city says unwanted books go to the land fill. Which ones?
Help yourself to furniture. No thanks
Daughters are handling clothes, thank goodness.
No garage/yard sale. No way. Donations. I don’t want money for her stuff.
Oh neo, what Huxley said about the poem, and what Richard Milne said about your powerful writing on this hard subject.
The reunion of the flatware is a gleam of light and I hope it’s healing, at least a little. My mother had stainless flatware in the Oneida Community Paul Revere pattern — very simple and clean, a little like your Lauffer Magnum, though more traditional, less modern and stylish. I always liked the Revere and when my time came to pick out flatware, that’s what I chose. There was a reunion of sorts when, years later, I inherited my mother’s Paul Revere and mingled it with mine. I do love using it. I still respond to the simple design, and put together, it carries more than 70 years of memories.
Funny how things like that matter, isn’t it?
Paper, now that’s a different, sadder story. I wrote a few days ago about clearing my parents’ decades of accumulated paper. You’re right, it can’t be done simply, or at least, not all of it. 20-year-old tax returns: easy. Boxes of letters between my parents before they married, and between my mother’s parents before THEY married: much harder. My grandfather’s childhood diary from the early 1900s, with his photos of Aunt Abby who raised him and his brothers after his mom died — just impossible to know what to do with. I cheated. I kept some of those things and got my sister and one of my brothers to keep the rest. We’ve just kicked the can down the road to our own kids, I know.
I hope you get some help with this task of mixed love and duty. I hope one way or another it brings you peace.
My daughter gave me a book several years ago called “Nobody wants Your Shit “ it’s actually a fun read.
@huxley at 7:08 pm:
“Let me not to the reunification of matching flatware admit impediments”
(With apologies to Shakespeare)
There’s no reason to hurry going through papers. Take your time and maybe set up some boxes to help prioritize them. I melted the gears in a shredder when I decided to cull my files of old bills and statements, and the idea of a commercial shredding service that will just take boxes is a great one. Anything to simplify the task. I did find that getting through all those old files didn’t take as long as I thought it would.
Maybe taking your time and letting your subconscious guide you will ease your grieving and help bring back memories that are happy ones.
You share lots of personal and private feelings here. Surviving death tests us all — the longer and more intimate the loss, the greater the burden.
I’m sure I’m not the only one here moved by your words and accounting for loss.
Your flatware set is very similar to the one I grew up with. My mother started out mid century modern with quality stuff, then graduated to French Provincial.
My sister took the mid century dining set and I got the crystal bedroom lamps. They made it to Hawaii unbroken, MIRACLE, and grace my beside now.
The lamps were all I needed, everything else – and there was some good stuff – was superfluous. ALL the memories seem to be contained in those two crystal pillars. They are an everyday part of my life, a beautiful link to the past.
My sister felt the same about the dining set.
I hope the flatware reunion will serve the same liberating and comforting role for you.
My sympathies.
My mom has a modern aesthetic and disposed of the tchotchkes she inherited from both my grandmothers. However, when they started to observe the kosher laws she had to buy 2 sets of kitchen and tableware for meat and dairy… in this case my daughters-in-law loved the modern Danish and Italian stuff she picked out then, so we gifted some tableware to struggling newlyweds.
My parents decluttered when they retired to Israel to be closer to us. We were saved the trauma, but are still mystified by some of their choices – and the furniture really is too large for their apartment.
If you have a fireplace, paperwork can be compressed into bricks and burned.
Google “paper briquette maker”
There are no forests in Israel so all wood furniture is valuable. and gets snatched up on “secondhand” sites or picked up off the street. I think this has to do with Israel’s family-friendly orientation and memories of post WWII austerity… lots of kid furniture on offer 2nd hand.
Israel has also moved rather aggressively to online government and business interactions, and there are visible, well-serviced bins for paper and carton recycling.
After my mom died 14 years ago when going through her stuff I found the receipt for the deposit my parents paid to the gas company when they started service at our house in 1960.
And, yes, she was another one who kept envelopes. When she paid bills, she kept the envelope, the bill, a copy of her check, and a copy of the return envelope–and kept all of it for years.
If my husband and I had not spent the previous year clearing out stuff in preparation for her downsizing, it would have been so much worse. She didn’t mind us doing the clearing, she just couldn’t make the decision to toss things herself.
You should look around your community for any recent refugees from South Africa. Thousands are arriving and they need everything to reconstruct a normal life. They deserve your help and will be very helpful to us all, with their ability to reveal all the dangers of communism and the racism endemic in the third world.
Wife and I are both lawyers (well, she still is; I’m recovering) and we save everything.
I know there are boxes and boxes of paper and detritus from the ’80s in our attic.
They’re up there. Waiting.
Life is a series of letting-go episodes. When in the bloom of youth, acquiring seems natural, but eventually, one understands the universality of death and the concommitant truth that none of what we accumulated is coming with us when we die. As Job remarked, we come into the world naked and leave it essentially the same way. The Lord gives and He takes away. Blessed be His Name.
Neo: what Huxley said. Who knew that mere things could carry so much emotion? The patina of love, the dust of loss, ineradicable in your hands but once given away they shine free of Before and they begin again in other hands.
God bless you.
Our bank held a community shredding day in the park the other weekend. There was a truck from a commercial shredding outfit and you could just hand things over to be tossed into the truck. I took two heavy bags full of old file folders full of stuff that I’d once thought might be needed someday, but it never was. Like, the mortgage commitment paperwork from two house purchases ago. That kind of thing. Other people were showing up with boxes and garbage bags overflowing with paper. And now it’s gone!
Remember he would not want you to be unhappy.
This experience is in such stark contrast to your other lost love. I remember when everything Gerard had was burned in the Paradise fire. His readers bought him necessaries like towels from an Amazon Wish list.
My wife and I started our married life in 1974 with Lauffer Magnum bought at Marshall Field & Co. We still use it. Field’s is gone, swallowed by and dumbed down as Macy’s. Sigh.
I sound like Edith and Archie singing “Those Were the Days.”
Pingback:Discards, Decades Later – Musings from Brian J. Noggle
My life greatly resembles Neo’s post and most of the comments.
Sigh.
We did have a family “auction” for most of the artwork that has been around the house for anywhere from 50 to 2 years. I was a bit surprised what some of the kids wanted, and we were all happier for the transfers. The rest goes to the local thrift store; many people buy things just for the frames: $2 vs $100 for some of them!
Owen – I liked how your comment meshed with huxley’s suggestion.
I know that writers talk about plot-bunnies – the random ideas that spark stories or novels; do they also apply to poems?