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MARY-JANE DUNCAN: A spring clean brings family memories

Mary-Jane has been sorting through boxes of family memorabilia.
Mary-Jane has been sorting through boxes of family memorabilia.

Are we Spring or are we winter?  I’m all in a guddle.

Having been warned of pending snow and minus temperatures, it’s actually been mild enough to remove the ‘big’ coat and leave it in the car.  Brave enough to remove it but not daft enough not to have it with me.

I am ready for whatever the rest of this week bring.  I have my umbrella, de-icer in the car,  woolly hat, mittens, hot chocolate, thermals boots,  sunglasses and sun lotion.

I foolishly decided to ‘sort’ one of our rooms this weekend.  Naturally this meant removing everything from said small box room and piling it all in the middle of the house.

The last box

Tutting, through sneezes, at the amount of dust and eye rolling at the presence of some Christmas decorations I’d been assured had been ‘packed away’.  But it was time, time to face the last box.

My brilliant Dad would have been 84 this week had he not abandoned me nine years ago.  Plunging me unceremoniously into orphanhood.  Forcing me to finally grow up and accept there was no more reassuring voice of reason at the end of the phone.

Furious didn’t cover it.  I wasn’t prepared.  I wasn’t ready and under no circumstances did I want to contemplate a world without Bob.

Memories of family life were all carefully saved.

My brother and I dealt with it like two lost fawns wandering wolf-filled woods alone.

Well, maybe slightly more dramatic than the actual truth but emptying our family home of over 30 years was a mammoth, emotional and exhausting task.

We did our best to focus while finding all manner of items.  They appeared to have kept everything.  Stored away, up the loft, hidden away in the only space in the house my ginormous brother couldn’t fit.  So, up I went.

This was by no means one of these hoarding programmes you see on the TV.  The ones that give you the absolute itch because they’re so uncomfortable to watch.

My care bear collection

But we had many things to clear and had Bob still been present, I might have had a few choice words with him.  Did we really need the skis and boots he possibly wore once sometime in the 1950s?  OR my carefully curated collection of care bears.

Every school report and photo ever issued, right back to primary and every birthday card we’d been sent.  Ever.  Let’s not even touch on the discovery of the turquoise sink from the bathroom suite he’d replaced when I was in my teens.  Why?  Just why?

Anyway, a lot of discoveries bringing a flood of memories and emotions and, more importantly, questions that would remain unanswered now we no longer had Mum or Dad to explain.

It took a while to clear the house ready for its new family and I’ll admit I was completely broken by the whole process.

Of course I brought home boxes

While my brother took to the sledgehammer and tip solution, my anxiety kicked in. What if we missed something?  Some little chink or link to the past that might be lost forever due to our exhausted need to get finished? So I brought home some boxes.

Boxes full of random photos, letters, envelopes etc  to be sorted through at a later date once the grieving was done and some peace was achieved.

This weekend, I climbed the seemingly unsurmountable hurdle of the last of these boxes.  It was time.

Bob himself wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on commenting on how long it’s taken, however he was in the fortunate situation of having a loft space, we do not.

This storage box has sighed and glared at me many times over these last nine years, just waiting to be opened and acknowledged.

My first curls

Finding the cards sent to my parents, once my adoption was complete, celebrating the arrival of their new daughter was lovely.

As was the wee attached envelope of my first curls.  Finally reading through his will and noting the care with which he made his arrangements had me teary eyed and wryly smirking over his penchant for crossing the Ts and dotting the Is.  Meticulous.

He was always meticulous.  The photos from my young teen scripture union camp were reminisced over prior to being binned.

I barely remember these people and our girls haven’t stopped howling with laughter over my perm phase.  Rude.

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