Taking one day at a time

June 20, 2106   When your parents and Grandparents pass away, life seems surreal for a while. You are very sad, you miss them every day, difficult  decisions must be made, and you find yourself facing the reality of what you never really thought would happen.  In our situation, we had known for years that getting the house ready to sell would eventually be a daunting task. There was so much stuff, more clothes than a store plus everything that belonged to our Grandparents. It would probably take us  a year or more. But, as always, God had a different plan! I am writing this for our families, so we can remember our heritage, but also so we will never forget how this turned into such a blessing for so many! Let me start from the beginning.

Our Family Home since 1975

Dining Room and Sun Room

Living Room with multiple seating areas

Bettie, our Mother, was very smart with a lot of energy! She was an exuberant character, the center of attention, and people were always drawn to her. Anytime she met someone, she quickly found out their entire family history back to the Mayflower!   She always loved to shop, had a brilliant eye for fashion, and always bought everything 75%-90%  off the original price. Her favorite items were designer women's clothes, regular clothes, shoes, jewelry, hats, dishes, any cookware, placemats, tablecloths, seasonal decorations, plastic flowers, outdoor furniture etc. etc. Her extreme shopping did not become a problem until about 1975 and lasted about 15- 20 years. There was no online shopping, just going to stores and packing her car full everyday. I would call her a "hoarder", but later I would find out that others saw her as a "extremely creative collector with an eye for fashion". She was organized, intentional, and everything was put neatly in place. Her clothes were organized by color, style, and she knew where everything was. She needed to own a store, but instead she collected and kept everything. This also including every item that was in her parent's home when they passed away in the early 1980's. My parent's home was large, almost 8,000 square feet that ended up being packed with stuff.

A beautiful Kitchen packed with stuff

After our Mom passed away September 3, 2015.....we started thinking about the beautiful pieces of furniture, china and silver and planning how we would divide them between the 3 sisters and 8 Grandchildren. We did not want to have anything appraised, but we wanted everyone to just choose what they wanted and what meant something to that person. Our Dad was fine with this and everyone was able to choose what they wanted easily. We tagged all of these items with the 3 sister's and 8 grandchildren's names.

On June 20, 2016 our Dad sadly passed away. He was the quite one in the family; a successful small business owner for 58 years, a sweet Father, and he adored our Mother. In the last year he had worried so much about what his daughters were going to do to get rid of the stuff, knowing that we were in the minimalist category.  After his death, we knew we there was a mountain of work to be done and we had no idea how we would do it. We estimated that our Mother had 2,000 - 3,000 pairs of new shoes, 1000+ purses, 50+ groups of china, 150 bedspreads in their original packages, 200 sheets for beds that were unopened, 500 glasses, 1000+ hats, 1100 square feet of tightly packed clothes that had never been worn, 2000 costume jewelry necklaces, vintage jewelry, vintage china, vintage purses, 150 men's sport coats, 500 men's shirts, and knick knacks enough for an entire flea market, etc. etc.

1100 Sq Ft of unused women's clothing

We all brainstormed and wrote down ideas. We made a list of non profits and called several. Lee Ann, my sister,  had previously taken items to the non profit Open Table. They came and took 2 carloads of linens and house hold items for setting up the homeless in homes. Although they could not store anymore.  Next Door, a ministry helping women when they get out of prison, took 8 bags of clothes. They also do not have room to store large amounts of clothes. Grace Place came and were able to take 5 large bags of jewelry and 5 bags of purses. John, my husband, and Janet, my sister,  and I had been taking several hundred bags to Goodwill and the Homeless Shelter for months. We kept telling ourselves that this process was "one day at a time", but it may take a few years. We would have never believed that in 6 weeks, with a small team of wonderful women  and 12 non profits, we could be almost through! I will try to describe the next few weeks and how it changed our lives!

To begin with, we knew we had to get all the items out that could not be given to charity or re-purposed. Janet and I rented a dumpster for a week and we filled it in 3 days!

Closet off Master Bedroom with more clothes and 2000+ shoes

We decided that if we took 20 bags each to Goodwill and do this 1-2 times per week, we could possibly take most of the clothing, purses, and shoes in 1-2 years! Like I said, God had other plans and how wonderful it was that we were not in control of this! Kevin, my brother in law,  knew someone at Long Hollow Baptist Church, which is 1 mile from our parent's home. He called them, and they were more than happy to come and see if they could help us and we could help them. Several women on staff came to look at all that we wanted to donate. They kindly told us that they would meet about this and see if they could come up with a plan. They could not really come up with a plan to handle a donation project of this size, but they put us in touch with several members of their church who ran Be Blessed and who had ties to multiple non profits in the area.

The Bonus Room over Kitchen

Little did we know, but this opened up an opportunity for us to bless not only the surrounding area, but Haiti, Uganda, Ethiopia, and at least 12 non profits in Tennessee. We also met the most amazing people every day, heard heartfelt stories, and worked alongside the most wonderful, faithful and hardworking women I could ever imagine. Micki, Cheron, and Melanie were there with Janet and I, everyday, all day, for 7 weeks plus! Nothing overwhelmed them and everyday there was a plan. Cindy soon joined our troop of workers! Many days, they had other precious friends, like Beth, that came and hauled boxes away.  We became such great friends, that we knew we would miss this when it was over. Many days, we organized, bagged, boxed and hauled stuff for 6-8 hours each day. We were tired each day, but could not wait to go back the next day. I'm going to write about some of the days and describe how each day was a new beginning that had new opportunities to help others. Never in our wildest dreams could we believe that something we had worried about for 10 years could be so wonderful!

The women that made this happen....Micki, Cheron, and Melanie