Mom’s Purse

My very kind sister-in-law was the one who went to the skilled nursing facility and collected Mom’s belongings after she passed in January of last year. We donated her clothing to the facility so that left only framed photos, Mom’s personal care items, her Bible and her purse. After the funeral, my brother and sister-in-law gave me the cardboard box of her belongings.

It’s funny, many people do this, but no one talks about how it feels to go through a loved one’s things after they die. I had spent the previous year going through my parent’s house and selling or donating the items family members didn’t want to keep. At first, I felt like a trespasser in their home, and there were some days I would start going through items and the memories would overwhelm me and I would have to stop.

It’s an honor to be entrusted with the job of disposing of someone’s possessions after they’re gone but it’s also a very difficult task to do.  To make it manageable, I had to break it down by going through one room at a time and spend only one day of each weekend working there. It took me almost a year to complete.

When I was handed the cardboard box with the last of my mom’s earthly possessions, those same feelings came flooding back. It was more than I could deal with so soon after her passing. In fact, it was months after Mom passed before I could go through that box. And then, it was a couple more weeks after I went through everything else in the box before I could even think about touching her purse.

When I was finally ready, I pulled the purse out of the box and recognized it immediately. It was the black leather bag I had bought Mom for her birthday five or six years before. I bought it at Kohl’s months before her birthday that year because I knew it was her style. She had been thrilled with the gift.

Mom always carried a big purse because years ago, she was the one that had everything but the kitchen sink in her bag. Remember the old bridal shower game where you have a list of common (or not so common) items and the woman who has the most items from the list in her purse is the winner?  Well, Mom always won that game. Need a tape measure or a screwdriver, yep, she had one. Need a lighter or some hard candy, or a Band-Aid, or a cigarette, check. Need a tissue or some hand lotion or a notebook or denture cream or a sewing kit, a pencil or a pen, some Tylenol…yep, Mom had them all in her bag.

A purse is such a personal item for a woman and Mom never went anywhere without hers. Growing up, I was taught to never get into Mom’s purse without her permission. As I held the purse up, I said, “I hope I have your permission to do this, Mom.” I had no idea what I might find but I opened her purse and looked inside.

I pulled out her pretty burgundy wallet first. She had an expired driver’s license and a few expired credit cards. There was no paper money in the dollar bill slot but there were a few coins in the change compartment. There was also a little business card sized card with hearts and flowers on it that said, “What you are is God’s gift to you, What you become is your gift to God.”

After I went through her wallet, I dumped the rest of the items in her purse out on the carpet. There was a pair of round rimmed hippie sunglasses in a case that I had never seen before, a tube of her favorite Revlon lipstick, some old striped hard candy, some folded unused tissues, a travel sized bottle of hand lotion, two hairbrushes, and a small round wooden disk that said “Tuit” on the face.

There definitely wasn’t as much in there as there used to be but I laughed when I saw the wood disk and remembered the time, she had handed it to me and asked if I had ever gotten a round tuit! In the old days, there would have been at least two packs of cigarettes in her bag, but she had stopped smoking years before.

I shredded the credit cards, and I ended up donating her purse, her wallet, and the hippie sunglasses. I threw away the old candy and both hairbrushes, but I kept her lipstick. She had worn that brand and color for years and it was a nice reminder of her. Going through Mom’s purse was the final thing I was able to do for her, and while it gave me some closure, I still miss her every single day.