It's really happening.

My mother moved out of my parents' house.

We're prepping for an estate sale. And having a little work done to pretty it up for potential buyers. And in a  few weeks there will be a for sale sign in front of my parents' house.

And then that's that.

I knew emotions would reach up and bite my mother when she least expects it. And I knew I'd have a few "moments."

It's just a house. But it's not just a house. My parents built it. They tilled the land. Even when we lived abroad my parents kept the house. One of my cousin stayed there much of the time we were away. It's been "home" for me all my life. So I knew I would have some emotional moments. But. It's too much house and too much yard for my mother. She needs a stress-free, trouble-free, safe place to live. And she found one. She has a lovely, large retirement apartment with a patio overlooking a private courtyard. She has friends who live there. Once the emotional letting go happens, I think she'll be happy there.

Meanwhile, there are weekends filled with numerous trips back and forth between home and the new place. I tell her we need to make the switch, call the new place "home." She can't do that, yet, and it's not exactly rolling off my tongue, either.

We've pretty much emptied the house of all the things we want. All that remains are the things we left behind for the estate sale. Our discarded items, some of them predate my parents' marriage, some are relatively new. My parents and their three children called it home. During my sister's divorce her three children called it home, and they all still refer to their grandparents' house as "home." A couple of my cousins spent extended stays there and refer to it as "home." Cats, a few stray dogs, hamsters, fish all called it home. There are trees, huge trees, that were taken as saplings from my grandparents' yard.

You get the picture.

Home.

Every time we pull out of the driveway some stupid home-related song enters my head. Madness' "Our House." Edward Sharpe "Home." CSN's "Our House." Simon & Garfunkle's "Homeward Bound."

The Nails' "The Things You Left Behind."

What? I'm talking about the general feeling of discarded stuff left behind. Not so much the heroin and garter belts. More the Canasta cards and records.

My mother and I sorted the difficult stuff last weekend. My parents' record collection. Their books. Stacks of insurance papers. During the many trips between the old and new homes the abandoned stuff looked more like sad remnants. Soon home will look like the Grinch was there when his heart was still two sizes too small. I started making mental notes about what my mother wanted at the new place and what was to be left for the estate sale. I repeated the list on the ride so I wouldn't forget. That's when Marc Campbell's raspy rap started beating in the back of my head. After a few trips The Things You Left Behind was updated for my family. I imagined The Nails performing this updated version and pretty soon I was giggling as I packed up stuff and discarded other stuff. Rock and roll can, and does, solve most emotional problems.

The Things We Left Behind

A set of Canasta cards, an old tin toy
An 8-track tape by the Beach Boys.
A vintage bottle of Bal a Versailles
A poster of Iggy Pop Blah Blah Blah
A third place ribbon from a relay race
A Time Life series book about space
A gas station workshirt covered in grime
These are some of the things we left behind.

Cards and letters from people they knew
Back before they had kids and things to do
A cookbook signed by Liberace
Wait, a Liberace cookbook? Is that worth anything?
Five yellowed pages of gran’s scrawled recipes
A Marine Corp jacket missing a sleeve
A couple spools of Macramé twine
These are some of the things we left behind

Two postcards in a cling film photo album
Anyone have a rhyme for album?
Soap on a rope, a book of clans,
Springform and bundt cake pans
Forgot how much we used to celebrate
Birthdays and holidays we always ate cake
A junior high school ID, that hair cut was ill-timed
These are some of the things we left behind

A box of broken beads and rhinestones
We always meant to restring those
A bag of Mexican jumping beans that hatched
Bought on vacation at a tourist trap
A highschool class ring that isn’t ours
Found under a seat in the old car
A bottle shaped like swans with necks entwined
These are some of the things we left behind

A Count Basie record set
(We haven’t had that valued, yet.)
A box of empty Pendaflex folders
A telephone desk with a phonebook holder
A spiral notebook with band names written in ball pen
Containing second year French verbs conjugation
A box made in third grade for school Valentines
These are some of the things we left behind

A reading lamp, some Barbie dolls
A few paintings that adorned the walls
A first aid kit from a Scandinavian cruise
Including “medication” no one used
A cookie jar with the ill-fitting lid on
Where there were always a few twenties hidden
A pantry door marked with children’s heights in penciled lines
These are some of the things we left behind

A set of canasta cards
A third place ribbon
A cookbook signed by Liberace
Bundt pans
Macramé twine
Soap on a rope
An 8-track tape
High school class ring
A Marine Corp jacket missing a sleeve
A Valentine box
Broken beads
A cookie jar
Money? Did we get the twenties?
One last entry on the pantry wall
Two words

“Our Family”