“If they still have stuff in the basement and garage, why is it called an empty nest?”
When I saw this quote on a plaque in a gift shop, I was tempted to buy one for each of my children. Open any of my spare-room closets, or check out my basement, and you’ll find souvenirs showing that my offspring were all once upon a time teenagers.
My sons learned in Israel at a time when everything was recorded on cassette tapes. Some of them enthusiastically recorded every shiur taught by their esteemed Roshei Yeshiva. Of course their intention was to use these recordings to review and retain the knowledge that they gained. Reality was somewhat different. They ended up learning a different mesechta, and as each of them got married and entered kollel, the tapes were left to languish in their boxes on the top shelves somewhere in mommy’s house. It’s only during Pesach cleaning that these boxes get taken down, dusted and, for lack of a better solution, put right back to spend another 12 months untouched. If my husband ever even hints that it’s time to make room for something else, the answers vary from “I’ll do it when I get around to it” to “I really should have them transferred to CDs” or “I wish I could listen to them, but my last cassette player broke, and no one fixes those things any more.” When their sons will learn in yeshiva, iy’H, all they will need is that little thingamagig (I think it’s called a sensa) that passes for a recorder today.
Girls also generate boxes of “memories.” One of my younger daughters once obtained the status of favorite aunt by doling out her keychain collection, amassed over several years, to enthusiastic recipients, aka nieces and nephews. Even those daughters who took along their camp albums still left me with boxes of photos. Remember the double prints? For the edification of those readers too young to remember film, many companies competed for the privilege of developing and printing those precious school and camp photos. A favorite gimmick was to offer free “doubles.” Where did these doubles end up? In boxes that keep the above-mentioned cassettes company.
(I must confess to being guilty of the same thing. If I would follow my own advice, after putting the best pictures into albums, which I do, I would throw out the blurry, unfocused and uninteresting prints along with all the doubles. Doing so would give me another drawer and several shelves. Today’s technology makes it so easy to have any important picture copied when desired, so hoarding the doubles just in case is really unnecessary.)
There is a sentimental gene running in our family. Thus, I still have every report card, honor certificate and progress report from some of my younger children. I think I gave the folders belonging to the older ones to their spouses a while ago. This past Chanukah, I wrapped each manila envelope separately and ceremoniously presented them to my daughters-in-law. Their children had a field day reading the teachers’ comments. I gained a shelf.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Once my children are all, b’H, married, my closets were relatively empty. Please note that I said “were.” By now, the wall-to-wall closet in the guest room, which was built when I had a few teenage girls at home, is so full that I direct my guests to hang their things in another room.
Let’s take a short tour. Section one, besides my few hanging tablecloths, is home to my daughter’s and her girls’ chasunah dresses, complete with the cleaner’s stuffing. The next section houses my collection of spare raincoats. (Here’s an exception to my rule of “buy a new one get rid of the old one.” Whenever the raincoats were new and improved, I did not discard the prior ones. Boy do they come in handy, when someone walks in on a sunny Shabbat afternoon that turns rainy right before mincha.) Then there is the collection of Shabbat coats, which reside in my closet until the 6-year-olds fit into their older brothers’ hand me downs. The last section is packed with one daughter’s stuff that she isn’t wearing now, has no room for and can’t bear to part with yet.
As you read this, you are probably enjoying your neat, uncluttered closets, with all the “stuff” put back in their place. Uncluttering is done for this year, you think. Hold your horses! There’s one more phase of decluttering that I would recommend to anyone. Yes, you guessed it. The Pesach “stuff” could use a discriminating eye and a ruthless weeding. The knives you bought when you were shana rishona that looked so pretty, but couldn’t cut anything harder than a banana, should not be taking up room in your drawers. Neither should the “wonder” peeler that makes you “wonder” who invented it. The nutcrackers that don’t crack, the juicers that require brute force to operate, the apple corer that cut more fingers than apples all have to go.
You finally got a new extended dining room table, to accommodate your growing family bli ayin hora. Your old tablecloths are too small. Give them away! Start with your kids, and if the size is wrong for their tables, find someone who could use them. Just leave one smaller one, in case you do add a folding table.
Along with all your crowded closets may your home be full to the brim of gezunt and nachat.
By Y. R. Samuels
