I was 20 when my great Aunty Flon died, aged 67. All being well, I’ll hit that birthday next year.
Aunty lived with my family in her final few months. They were awful months as the agony of stomach cancer ripped away her humour and spirit. Her long and painful decline had been passed off as “nerves” by her doctor. Recently widowed, she believed him when he said it was grief chewing at her guts.
Moving to live on our farm meant she had to find a new doctor, who diagnosed Aunty’s cancer. Mum was devastated when she died. Aunty and her husband Alb had been childless, and had become surrogate parents to mum after her own mum had died of breast cancer, at 50.
When Aunty came to live with us, she brought as much from her family home as could be fitted into trailers and utilities. Among her goods were many miniature cymbidium orchids, which she and Uncle used to exhibit at agricultural shows throughout Eyre Peninsula. She also brought Uncle’s drop-front writing desk, a cedar trunk reputedly brought out from England in 1838, beds, bedding, a meat safe, crockery, her tennis trophies, linen, and knick-knacks like old teapots with newspaper clippings of recipes and random social news stuffed inside.
Among Aunty’s items were household goods from her birth home, gleaned from her own late parents’ estate.
Her laminex table didn’t make the cut; however, its six wooden chairs found their way to my parents’ shed, occasionally used when our family had some kind of social gathering. Before coming to live with us Aunty would often sand those chairs and paint them in the latest fashionable colours with strong-smelling enamel paint.
Mum avoided her greatest fear of cancer, instead suddenly passing from a massive stroke a few weeks before she turned 93. In her last few years, after dad was moved to a nursing home, she lost interest in trying to deal with random items such as Aunty’s chairs.
After she and dad died (5 days apart), I inherited most of their goods and chattels. My brothers, who live interstate, took what they wanted, threw out a lot, and moved the residue to my place.
By then, my own husband had passed away, and suddenly I was facing, alone, a mountain of other people’s possessions that I didn’t want. Things that belonged to Aunty and Uncle, that my parents could not bear to part with. Things that belonged to my great grandfather, that mum couldn’t part with. Things that my husband accumulated during our brief 30 years together, that his children don’t want.
I can’t say that I don’t value these things, because I do. But there is only so much admiration that can be vested into an old butter churns, milk separators, lamb castrators, mining equipment, building tools, tables, desks, chairs, books, linen, kitchenware, trophies, nails, nuts, bolts, planks, tables, gardening tools, pots, calligraphy sets, leather working tools, harness, plants.
None of these are mine by choice, but they are now mine by inheritance, and I struggle to reduce their numbers to those items which I want to keep.
I am lucky to own my own home, with a big shed that many a handy-person envies.
In my lifetime experience of living with people whom I now recognise as hoarders, I know that the sub-text of big shed is “lots of storage room”, and that lots of storage room means “let’s keep it because it might be useful to someone, someday.”
In my decluttering — or, rather, de-owning — journey, I have come to realise that “more storage” isn’t a solution for me. What works for me is “less stuff”. I am not a minimalist and never will be, but I have too much stuff that is not mine by choice.
Dealing with other people’s leftover possessions requires decisions. It can be tiring. It can be emotionally draining. It is tiresome. The more I do, the easier I find decisions. Like Aunty’s chairs. Of the original six, four remained, neatly stacked in two pairs on the mezzanine floor that my husband had built for storage. I am slowly dealing with the items stored there.
Today, it was the chairs’ turn for decision. I loved the character of those chairs. I loved the thought of how much Aunty enjoyed sanding and painting them. I loved that someone might say “Oh, I would love them for my character kitchen”. I momentarily considered offering them for sale online, then shuddered at the process of taking photos, describing them, uploading an ad, and getting replies from people wanting to bargain my price down by $5.
My brother said, of dad’s wonderful builder’s planks, “Don’t offer them for sale unless you get better than firewood price for them.” He can always be counted upon to be sensible.
I looked at Aunty’s chairs. Two had badly split seats, and suddenly the answer was easy. Those two could not be easily repaired, so I decided to break them down for firewood. It took no time to break one down, cutting off the metal feet, and removing screws. I spared a thought for how beautifully they had been made, with strong dowels, before bringing the heavy hammer down onto them.
As I have been writing this, that broken down chair has brought a nice warmth through the fire in the lounge room. It’s a cold night; firewood is expensive.
I don’t love Aunty any less because I have burnt one of her old, broken chairs. And I don’t want to be dealing with other people’s unwanted stuff when I turn 67, in 13 months’ time.
