The greatest treasure my dad would never let go of

Recently I spent a week cleaning out my parents’ house with them so it could be put on the market. Typical of any family home that had been lived in for over 50 years, we had to deal with the expected accumulation of gifts, clothes, family memories, and just “stuff” that was long overdue for a trip to Good Will or to the dump. Lots of memories, loads of laughs, and even a few tears. The dulcimers that we made in elementary school in the early 70s still hung proudly on our basement walls next to a Christmas album cover of a record I had sung on when I was in my early twenties. Endless books that had fortified our faith through decades as well as the rock we had brought back from Sugarloaf mountain in Minnesota during a vacation that our family had enjoyed with my grandparents when I was twelve.

This exercise on cleaning out in order to move into a much smaller home put my parents per forza within the trend toward minimalism. Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, brought minimalism to the mainstream. This movement has inspired people, particularly millennials, to move into smaller homes, cut their wardrobes and regularly give away the possessions they aren’t actively using.

As we gradually focused what my parents would take with them to their new home, I had a clearer sense of the worthlessness of so much of what we don’t let go of along the way, even as the “worthwhileness” of even very humble objects was enhanced. For example, in a corner of one box, I discovered the two tiny wood-carved shoes that were an ornament from my great grandparents’ Christmas tree (and made sure they were in the “to take with us” box), and the plaque commemorating my grandpa’s introduction into the Softball Hall of Fame. Perhaps minimalism is so popular among the millennials because they have a much shorter memory of family history and commitment to relationships across the decades that tie people together through shared experiences of tears and joy.

No, as we worked through the rooms in my parents’ home, it was clear that this was about much more than tidying up so as to live with less. My dad let go of his easy chair so my mom could keep the rocker that had been from her mother’s home. He passed on his own mother’s china to my brother so mom could keep her mother’s china. They were decisions he made on his own and silently implemented without discussion. Even though I knew it was hard for dad to let go of the china cabinets from his mother’s home and the dining room table because they just wouldn’t fit, his greatest treasure he would never let go of was mom.

Focusing your heart on your treasure doesn’t necessarily mean looking away from “earthly” treasure. It means using, loving, giving treasure motivated by love, for love is the greatest gift and the highest treasure of all.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

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