Post-mortem

I realize that my long silence after announcing the death of my mom a few weeks ago may have created the impression among my faithful readers that I have been paralyzed by either grief or the weight of post-mortem responsibilities.

The truth is that, having managed to get everything done in New York that I needed to, at least for now, I've been back in Fidenza for well over a week. It has been cold and rainy here, but despite the gloomy atmosphere I've been feeling entirely cheerful and pursuing my usual Italian-side activities with great pleasure, even though my duties as a blogger seem to have fallen by the wayside.

I think these lights are for Christmas, but maybe they're permanent.

Not that there wasn't a lot to do back in New York. In addition to the usual legal business and the canceling of subscriptions, phone service, cable TV, and so on, we all faced the challenge of dealing with her stuff. We'd already moved her three times since our father died 15 years ago--once to her new solo apartment, then to the retirement community where she'd been living for the last eight or nine years, and last summer to a new apartment in the same building--and each time we helped her whittle down her heap of possessions.

However, the heap was still piled pretty high. Dot was a prolific artist and a dedicated shopper, and she was loath to throw things out, especially things she'd made. We her progeny already had as many of her paintings, pottery, and sculptures as we had room for, sometimes more than that, but she held on to many of her best works till the end. When she died these coveted items became available, and most of us decided we could find room for at least some of them.

I'm happy to report that who got what was settled amicably. There was some contention at first, but once we stopped trying to discuss things via social media and talked to each other face to face, we were able to resolve issues quickly and with good humor. Both my kids wanted and adopted a lot of things linking them to their grandparents, which pleases me more than I would have expected. And I'll be eternally grateful to my New York sibs and their spouses, who bore the brunt of clearing out Dot's last apartment and handled that difficult job with generosity and aplomb.

My sister took this sad last picture of Dot's place minus Dot.

The obvious takeaway from that experience would be to accept the transience of life and the emptiness of material things and get to work disposing of a lot of our own stuff now, rather than leaving it behind for our kids and other relatives to deal with. This point was driven home to me when I first arrived in New York and my brother and daughter greeted me by exclaiming, "You're the oldest one now!" As if that hadn't been occurring to me all during what my sister referred to as our mother's "endless farewell tour."

Like most Americans, however, my reflexive response to reminders of my own mortality is a desire to shore myself up with things, lots of them. In addition to bringing some more of Dot's paintings back to Italy with us, plus quite a few of her ceramics, some costume jewelry, a raincoat, a set of place mats, a nutcracker, a wine stopper, and even a few pairs of shoes, I've been obsessively thinking about the Italian winter wear I ought to be buying and the Italian tchotchkes we need. We're also embarking on a construction project, a second bathroom, which will require all kinds of additional purchases beyond the obvious fittings.

So instead of pondering the grimly inevitable, I'm deliberately not thinking about what will become of our ever-growing hoard when Danny and I pass over to the other side. (Sorry, kids.) And in the meantime I will be cataloging a good deal of what we're accumulating here. Please stay tuned.