The Endgame

Newsletter #77 - Just things

Port Medway, Nova Scotia, August 18, 2024

Just things

We’re clearing out our house in Nova Scotia, getting ready to put it up for sale. It’s time to change the way we spend the summers. We want to give up the burden of maintaining an old house. We want more freedom to go to new places and do new things.

We’ve had that house, in a small fishing village on the South Shore, for more than 25 years. For a long time we stuck stuff in the attic without a thought, things accumulated over our lifetimes. Nothing ever got thrown out, sold, given away, or shredded. The attic was full of boxes of newspaper clippings, slides, photographs, files, books, pictures, road maps, china, ancient electronics, old income tax returns, letters, memorabilia, you name it. “It’s got to go,” we told each other. We’d said it many times before, but this time we were determined. There was no room for all this stuff in our Toronto apartment. There was no room for it in our heads.

And so we sorted through everything, getting rid of it one way or another. Some things went to the municipal dump; some to a local church for their annual jumble sale; some to a thrift shop. The local library took a few books. One or two friends claimed this or that as a memento. Tom, a local antique dealer and friend, bought a few things he thought he could resell, many of them things we had bought from him in the first place. Our no-clutter kids and grandkids were not interested in much.

But every now and then the ruthless process of sorting through the attic came to a halt.

“Look at this,” I said to Cynnie, holding up an old-fashioned highly-decorated Royal Doulton jug and bowl that I found wrapped in old newspapers and buried in the bottom of a cardboard box.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen those,” she said. “Where did they come from?”

“They were my mother’s. Once, when we were walking together in downtown Victoria, maybe fifty years ago, she admired them in a store window and later I bought them for her as a surprise. She was so pleased.”  

My mother has been dead for over ten years. Seeing the jug and bowl again brought a flood of memories and a wave of love. “My mother treasured this jug and bowl,” I said. “I can’t give them away.”

Cynnie smiled. “I get it. Let’s keep them. We’ll find a place to put them.”

When I told this story to my daughter, who loved her grandmother a lot, she said, “Dad, it’s only china. I know the jug and bowl belonged to Gan, but you’re being sentimental. They’re just things. See if Tom can sell them.”

My mother and me, 1944

Can “just things” connect you to the past, or to a person? Maybe not. To think that they can is, I suppose, as my daughter suggested, to be sentimental. Most people look down upon sentimentality. Doris Lessing described it as a false feeling. The dictionary defines it as “the quality of being strongly influenced by happy memories of past events or relationships with other people, rather than by careful thought and judgment based on facts.” Why is it a bad thing to be strongly influenced by happy memories? Isn’t that one of the ways we make sense of the past and integrate the past into the present?

Anyway, I can tell you this, I was mightily moved when I held that jug and bowl. I’m keeping them. I’ll see what my mother saw and hold what she held.

Some reader comments on Newsletter #76 (the language of old age)

My severest critic wrote: “I think often of my friends who have died. A slow, treasured parade. I smile, I chuckle, at these treasured memories. My, they were fun, real fun… I miss them every day, and say to my bride, “Oh remember when...”

A senior lawyer commented: “We all have our memories of family, colleagues, friends and acquaintances who have left us, some lamented, some not. But there is a group that I lament even more—like my closest friend at university and after, a brilliant athlete, neurosurgeon, canoeist and much more, about 18 months my senior, who, when I visit him, put my arm around him and talk to him about our many adventures, has not the slightest idea who I am. That is sadness.”

Another reader, a journalist and educator, wrote: “I particularly resent the patronizing praise I get from the caregivers in the building as I head out for a walk or back from the gym. ‘Isn’t that terrific?’ they twitter, as if it’s a miracle that a 75-year-old can still manage to climb on to a treadmill. Then they tell me how important exercise is, because old people are too stupid to know that.” 

And this: “It's the condescension that can rankle! So the trick is to find a way to laugh at it. And to feel lucky to be still around. But keeping equilibrium and a sense of humour can be an effort, for sure...”

From a reader in Halifax: “Throughout my life my father wrote me a letter every week.  He did that up until about 5 months before he died. I have kept the last letter he wrote... He apologized that he couldn’t write any longer and signed off.  It was one of the most emotional times that I remember… that letter.  As we are aging, I feel as if I’ve had strong responses to situations which bring a similar emotion forward. You’ve had that impact on me especially with your blog and its topics.” 

A reader in Scotland, currently in Toronto, wrote: “Spot on with the condescending dismissals. My non-favourite is, ‘she doesn't look her age,’ as if looking your age is a terrible thing… I also don't like the way we lump age groups together. Scotland (maybe it's all UK?) doesn't seem to discriminate the way we do; the pubs I go to feature all ages, including students and pensioners. It's a reflection of the street. Not like here, where bars, pubs, etc. seem to feature only one group. Generally quite young.”

I appreciated this quick comment from one reader: “I love this because it is true.”

The irrepressible David Wolinsky wrote: “Roger Angell clearly understood the real language of old age and it all comes down to just one phrase. Its most famous articulation, at least in my opinion, being the old joke about a man who falls from the 95th floor of a building, and as he passes each floor, he’s heard to mutter “So far, so good.” 

The last word goes to a dear friend in Bordeaux, France: “Glad you are still vertical…”