May 20, 2010- Being There

One of my dear cousins had a terrible chore to do this spring: emptying the house she grew up in.

She's an only child, so at least there weren't any fights over an inheritance. Her father died quite some time ago, and it's been a couple of years since her mom passed, but she needed to wait to bring herself to start dispersing the house.

In the end, she held an auction, the old-fashioned 'countryside' variety, with tables on the front lawn and a church group offering hot dogs and pop and pie at a lunch table. It must have been a nasty job getting ready: not only dealing with the detritus of two lives and a marriage, but also sorting through her own grief and loss, and in a way, losing her family all over again, as items are discussed and bid on, then scattered to other peoples' homes.

I was there if not to bid on anything, at least to stand near my sweet cousin and just (boy do I hate this far overused phrase) be there for her. Eight other cousins made the trek to the farm for the sale, too, along with every remaining aunt and uncle well enough to travel. It was pretty fun watching two aging aunts, both of whom have a certain level of hearing loss, thinking they were being stealthy as they contemplated certain items at the top of their lungs. "That was Mum's, you know," one of them bellowed, pointing at a sturdy little rectangular glass measuring cup. The other one hollered back, "I remember she kept it in the drawer at the top of that dresser in the old kitchen..."

I had my eye on a few things, and sadly missed out on a gorgeous old 8-cup glass mixing bowl because I was in a laugh-fest with a cousin about an old blue enamel drinking cup we all remembered from the shelf at the top of Grandma's wood cookstove. It was the cup designated for thirsty grandchildren to use on our regular Sunday afternoon visits. It was never washed, just rinsed and put back on the shelf for the next kid to use. There was a chip in the rim that I can feel even now. It turns out, each of us asked our parents about that cup when they went through the divesting process twenty years ago at my grandparents' house. One cousin was texting her sister about it, joking that 'THE CUP" had just sold to a stranger for 2 bucks. We were laughing at how quickly she would get back to us, when I missed my chance and the auctioneer sold 'my' bowl, right into the hands of another cousin! Oh, well, it would have been awkward to have gotten into a bidding war with her, anyway.

Plus, just a few minutes earlier, I had snagged another, very cool glass measuring cup. I had been my grandmother's, and apparently, she stored it in a drawer at the top of a dresser, in the old kitchen.