Sorting, Sorting and More Sorting

Over the years, Jeanette had given Doug and I several items from her home that had sentimental value to her or that wore family heirlooms.  She had also given us a few pieces of jewelry that she thought that we might want or that our children would like.  In addition she sorted through all of the coins that her family had saved over the years and put them in baggies for each of the Heinisch children.  When Carl decided to sell the house several years ago, he called Doug and told him to come out and sort through the house for possessions of his that he would like to keep.  While we were there that weekend we found several tubs with our names on them that Jeanette had set aside and a few family items that we wanted to keep as well.  It was a sad painful process, but we were glad to be able to hold on to the memory items.

This week I decided to pull out everything that Jeanette had given us and sort through it all.  It was a little overwhelming at first.  I decided to tackle it by groups.  I first sorted through all of the jewelry.  There was a lot more of it then I remembered.  I wasn't quite sure what to do with it all, but after a day of thinking about it, I decided to write down each piece in a notebook, assign a number to the piece, put the jewelry in a small baggie and number that as well.  It was a lot of work, but in the end I was able to label 75 pieces of jewelry and found some really interesting pieces as well as some of Jeanette's pins from her high school and college days.  I also was able to locate her wedding veil and confirm with my mom that Jeanette's wedding dress was stored at her house with mine.  Tackling the silverware and silver tea sets was a lot easier than the jewelry as there was less of it and most it was already labeled.

Fortunately, Doug was a huge help with the photos and articles that I found in the items that Jeanette left for me.  We had fun looking through her baby book, wedding album and high school graduation program.  We sorted out duplicate pictures to give to Dan and Phil and wrote names on the back of the ones we were keeping so that our children would know who everyone was.  Looking through her tub of memorabilia didn't make me as sad as I thought that it would.  Waiting seven years after her death definitely made it easier.  I did talk to Carl a few times yesterday.  I had found his jewelry cache in the tub and wanted to let him know that I had his wedding ring.  He was happy to hear that and called back later to see if I had a folder of pictures and articles that would help him with his memoir writing.  It felt good to help him relocate that information.  As I hung up the phone I realized that Jeanette had put a lot of thought into what she wanted to leave for all of us.  She knew that I was the one who would sort through all of the memories and make sure that everything was organized and labeled for generations to come.  As overwhelming as it was, I knew that it meant a lot to Doug and our children which made the work well worth it.  In the end I was proud to be her memory keeper.