We face up to awful things because we can't go around them, or forget them. The sooner you say 'Yes, it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it,' the sooner you can get on with your own life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things.
~E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
This time of year Lanny and I like to go snooping around local garage sales. He is always on the lookout for tools and other equipment for his new workshop, and I just enjoy looking for bargains. I have purchased lots of books and toys for the grandkids at drastic price reductions, and have found a few kitchen ware items that I just had to have (a fondue pot comes to mind...) Lanny has found old, "made in the USA" tools that you can't buy anymore. And both of us have a bit of nosiness-- we enjoy driving around and seeing the county. We have been in neighborhoods we otherwise would not have seen. And we have been way out in the country in barns and other interesting places. We love it!
This week we set out with a list of sales in our hands. I had found a listing for an estate sale out in the country that was calling to both of us, and to a moving sale in another rural area of the county. We set off to the estate sale first.
Estate sales are usually large, full of a lot of junk, and often a few gems. Usually an elderly person has died and the family, after sorting through all the stuff left behind, puts whatever is left into a sale. That was the case here. The setting was the home of the deceased, way out in the country on a large lot. Not a farm-- just a large lot with a modest ranch home that had been built probably late 1960's. It had not been updated since, so the whole place was a little shabby and the decor was very dated.
Usually I am unaffected by such a setting and event, but perhaps because I myself am aging, I felt a profound sense of sadness as I snooped. There was a large garage filled with tools and a nice workshop area in one corner. Connected to the garage, which was only connected to the house itself with a breezeway, was a small den-like room. Clearly this was a "man cave" where someone had spent a lot of time puttering or watching tv or whatever. It had been a haven from whatever trials had been endured in his life.
There were also items indicating the man who had lived here had been a doting grandfather-- a few games and toys and child-sized furniture and stuff like fishing poles. At a table inside the garage were the family, chatting together and seeming to enjoy the day. My guess is one of these people was a grandchild of the man who had once lived here.
Lanny found a few tool items that pleased him and I got an old popcorn tin I'll use in my knitting. We moved on, driving for several miles to the moving sale.
The setting here was out in the country as well, but this felt more like a suburb. The house had been built probably in the 1990's, and so was not as shabby and outdated, but had a very lived-in, comfortable look. There was a realtor's "SOLD!" sign out front. It was almost empty except for all the items that were for sale inside. I was amazed at everything that was being sold-- room after room, tables and countertops stacked full of items. In the kitchen I discovered cake decorating supplies-- not just a few pans shaped like superheroes, but stands and pillars and fountains for large tiered wedding cakes. Boxes of little plastic trinkets meant to adorn baby shower and wedding shower cakes. In another room there were boxes and boxes of scrapbooking supplies and sewing notions galore.
There was a harried-looking middle aged woman who seemed to be in charge, and along with a few other women there were also two teenagers helping. One was a middle-school aged young girl, the other a boy I guessed to be about 15. Nobody was smiling or enjoying themselves. The longer I was in the house the tenser the atmosphere felt.
Then I noticed a little child's kitchen cupboard standing in one room with a price tag on it. The cupboard was a little crude, obviously hand made by someone. There was a note that explained the cupboard had been made by the woman's grandfather for her when she was little, and she hated to get rid of it but she had no place to put it in her new home.
That's when it hit me-- this woman was moving into an apartment with her kids. There was no male presence at the sale, which led to the assumption of a divorce, perhaps a death. She was getting rid of not just a lot of stuff, but of hobby items and cherished childhood toys. I guessed that there was a financial crisis here as well, that she had probably had to go back to work full time and had no time for hobbies any more. It was clear that the children were not happy either. That alone was a challenge-- and probably induced a lot of guilt on top of everything else this woman was feeling.
I wanted to stop and talk to her, tell her how brave she is and that she didn't know it yet but she would get through this hard time and would someday find herself stronger and braver than she ever thought possible. That her kids would be okay eventually too, and that if she was feeling guilty over their reaction to this move, she needed to remember that she was doing the best she could for them. And that was all any mother could do... But I also remembered how hard it was when I was in the middle of my own crisis to keep my composure while I did what I had to do to keep moving forward. This woman had a couple friends helping her so she had support. Instead of stopping to talk, I bought an item I didn't need and left quietly, saying a little prayer for her and her children under my breath.
Garage sale shopping took on a quite different tone this past weekend... I came face to face with the pain of human mortality, of saying goodbye to a cherished loved one. Of being alone suddenly, of feeling abandoned. The panic of financial woes. Of trying to rear children on your own. And of the ability of humans to rise above all this and keep putting one foot in front of the other, of walking the journey that is life and taking paths you never thought you'd see.
As we drove away I was again struck by how much pain there can be in life, and how brave people can be sometimes when faced with hurdles they had not imagined possible to surmount. How important it is for us to remember that a) misfortune can happen to anyone, any time, anywhere, and at some point it will come to each of us, b) that sometimes just surviving until tomorrow is all you can do, but you just must keep moving forward, keep trying and c) that at some point you will realize that you have survived and are stronger. And life is better because of it. And as fellow humans, each of us must try to be sensitive to the suffering of others... we're all in this together.
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