Every day for the last week, from 9 am until 10 or 11 pm, my wife and I have devoted our every effort to combing through cabinets, closets, drawers, desks, and a ridiculously cluttered basement, deciding (again and again and again) what stays and what goes — which of her parents’ treasures and memories and junkpiles will make the trip to Knoxville, which will be given to grieving relatives, which will be sold, and which, inevitably, will be hauled away to the dump. Childhood crayon drawings. Ceramic doo-dads. Dresses and jackets and hats and shoes and t-shirts and socks and sweaters and coats. Books. Tables. Photographs. Paintings. Chairs (58 at last count). And all of that cookware, china, crystal, and silver.
The movers loaded up a truck yesterday, and it should arrive in Knoxville on Monday. Our new home will soon be filled with familiar furniture, all of it bittersweet for now. We’re both exhausted.