Preface and Background for this Essay
Dear Readers:
You’ve probably noticed a big gap in the posting of our essays, and you are due an explanation. August sixth of 2007, our beloved beagle/spaniel companion of well over twelve years died. Both Cliff and I mourned her deeply for many weeks. Before we left for our annual trip east to see our daughter in New York, and Cliff’s family in Canada, I posted all I was capable of generating about the loss of a pet. Just like all of you facing death or grieving, we had to process her loss and the big hole it left in our lives. Her death was a gift, in that we had to experience again what it means to lose someone or something that is treasured, and hopefully we came out on the “other side” of grief with more compassion in our hospice work and in facilitating support groups for people suffering losses.
Then whoa!, we joined the Altadena Community Church—United Church of Christ, where our Hospice chaplain serves also as Pastor. Something deep inside told our intuition we needed to move to Altadena from the San Fernando Valley, and right away!
We began looking on Craigslist for apartments, and the first one we came to see was what we wanted and needed. Suddenly a moving van appeared on November 3, and all the big things went out of our former mobile home and into the new domicile. It was a different story for all the multitude of things that one accumulates over 43 years of marriage and four plus years living in one spot. Now as we enter this last week of 2007, the last boxes are being unpacked and things put away. And therein lies the title for the next essay.
A lot of decisions had to be made about what would be THE LAST THINGS TO KEEP and LETTING GO OF A WHOLE LOT OF NON-ESSENTIALS. Read on, and may we extend to all, heartfelt wishes for the New Year of 2008, that it brings peace, wisdom and serenity to all of us. June and Cliff Kenny
LAST THINGS AND LETTING GO
A little seed for this musing on last things was planted last spring at Eastertime when we went to our niece’s, a hundred miles away, and through traffic gridlock. After we reached her gorgeous desert hideaway, and I sat out under her pine tree, drinking in the silence and the scents of the desert I love so much, I thought to myself, “Better savor all this beauty. It might be the last time we make this trek.” And I began to think seriously, that at our ages of 86 and 76, lots of experiences are becoming “last things!”
When Tillie died this last summer, we knew she was our last dog. We had decided that long ago, for we are old, and as far as we were concerned, there could never have been a better animal companion. How can one replace something or someone that was so nearly perfect? We can still help non-humans through support to animal-loving organizations. Tillie was with us on that trip to the desert, and at some deep level, I was pretty sure she would never again hear the quail, nor smell the coyotes, nor want to chase the jack rabbits one last time. Within four months she left us at the merciful hands of a kind veterinarian who took away the pain that neither we nor medications could ease.
With no dog for whom to have some yard space, we could now consider apartment living, and suddenly we went from a six room mobile home to a spacious three room apartment with bath. We lost two walk-in closets. Office and bedroom had to be combined. Book-lovers that we are, we grudgingly gave up books we had carried around for years, for at our ages, we realized we would never have the time to read them all. Those books were the first things that went to the Church’s rummage sale, held just two weeks after the initial move. Also the bookshelves that stored those volumes. Then out went investigative research materials that I once fancied I would turn into a novel. Those four boxes were easy to dispose of. I’ve written and published one book: that’s all I have time to pen in my lifetime besides these essays I so dearly love to write.
I still have boxes of memorabilia of my days in Hollywood and my association with people who made history in many fields. But the contents of those boxes are to be gone through and distributed to the museums or collections that would store and display them for others to enjoy and to learn from. The paring down of clothes was not a problem. I no longer make the public appearances as often as in the past three years, so simplicity and functionality can take precedence over being “in style.”
Then one comes to the living, kitchen and dining room things that most women enjoy using and displaying. One relative was given the ancient tea set I inherited from my beloved foster-mother. One daughter received two unique lamps from Canada, and one daughter an oil painting her father treasured. Though I now have a larger kitchen, I knew I would never again have the time nor energy to bake or can and preserve the foods I did in former years. In a sudden moment of that realization, I gathered up all my canning kettles, processing materials, jars and lids and seals and off they went to a thrift store for some other lady to enjoy. One son got a set of dishes he can use in his business enterprise. And so it went, until we could say honestly, “Less is more!” More space to relax in, more time to do the things we really want to do, more focus on how we use our energies, even as they lessen from year to year. And an added bonus—less for me to dust!
I decided too that I would only keep, find and surround myself with things that are beautiful to look upon, so that I live according to the name of this web site—“find beauty as you face death.” So a lovely outer shower drape of roses is in place. I’m using my best tablecloths and place mats on the dining table, and soon I’ll put the exquisite quilt my foster-mother made by hand as our bed cover. For the present the old bedspread makes a practical place to finish the tasks of sorting through things to be kept, or to be thrown or given away. A former bar counter-top now holds over a dozen photos of dear ones in a variety of lovely little frames. I even decorated a little for Christmas, but without a sense of clutter.
There’s a lovely song called “My Cup Runneth Over with Love.” These days, in the new and what will be our last home, I find myself heeding the words of that ballad: “I memorize moments that I’m fondest of:” Listening to “Prairie Home Companion” on public radio as we eat Saturday night supper, or playing a CD of Tony Kawalkowski’s magnificent violin-playing, or sharing passages from the books we both prize or choosing a special plant for our tiny patio. To look out at night to the distant lights of Los Angeles sky-scrapers, or on a clear day to look out beyond the San Gabriel Valley and spy the ocean in the distance are new thrills that have come our way by making this move to the “Higher Ground” of Altadena.
In summary, I think this consideration of LAST THINGS AND LETTING GO is what Alfred Lord Tennyson surely meant when he wrote that line from his poem, “Ulysses,”
“I will drink Life to the lees.” And that masterful poet concludes his poem with this powerful observation:
“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are—
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
We must not yield to apathy, to fail to take it all in. We must not yield to distraction, not being fully present in the “here and now.” We must exercise greater powers of observation and enjoyment of LAST THINGS. And having savored, even treasured last things, when our time comes for that final letting go, we can say with St. Thomas More,
“For all that has been, thanks.
For all that is to be, Amen.”
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