Last Sunday

Last Sunday all of my mom's children and their respective spouses and offspring were together except for two sons-in-law. After having a post-birthday party for her or unbirthday party, she told us she had two things she wanted us to do---take a family picture and decide which things we wanted of her belongings including the belongings of her ancestors that she has accumulated. She stressed that we didn't have to take the things home now, just label them.

After taking the family pictures, we all went down to the basement and she started the "show and tell"...This was the Bible Commentary that migrated from Germany to Russia and then to America, etc. Some of the females started getting teary-eyed including my mom. I was already exposed to this..my mom already made a brother and I sort through things almost a week prior. My brother kept reminding me that this is what we would've done had she been moving to a condo. That made me feel a lot better about it.

My mom has the deep desire to not leave a mess for her children...She is not giving up hope. She says that if she lives 10 more years, then we will have this done already. If she wants to see her ancestors' things, she will come visit us.

This last picture is of my mom and her granddaughter-by-marriage wearing my mom's wedding dress. My oldest sister is the honorable owner of it now. My mom was so proud that we didn't fight about her belongings, but tried to convince each other to take things.

p.s. Can you guess which family member we dub as our "family clown"?