Friday, October 25, 2002
Had to head up north to Keswick again today in order to sign the deal selling Mom's house. Would have rather not have to take another day off of work in order to do this, but it did give me the chance to clean out the house.
I arrived at about 10am, and found that the auctioneer had been busy, boxing up the things he wanted. He'd been sick so he hadn't carted away everything on Wednesday as was the original plan, but was told he would do sometime today.
I set to work clearing things out. It was fairly obvious what the auctioneer didn't want, so I methodically started filling garbage bags full of junk.
I ran across batches of papers the auctioneer had left aside in piles for me. I started to go through them, looking for financial papers. I ran across a picture of my Mother from the late 50's or 60's, wearing a robin's egg blue dress jacket, standing in front of some Greco-Roman-style monument, likely somewhere in the States. Also found some old Masonic papers relating to my Father, along with a few stray articles and magazines from Dad's days with the Mersey Roaders cycling club. There was an intriguing old photo depicting my Father when he was maybe in his 20s. I imagine it was shot during one of his cycling forays. I know my Mother never had to clear out her own parents house -- she was in Canada by then and her brother took care of it, but I imagine my Father did his. Wondering if he went through the same thought processes as I. Picking up bits and pieces of old memories. Wanting to bring mementos for my girls, but not wanting to just bring back junk. Sentimentality vs practicality. In the end I saved what I could. Including those pictures.
Morris dropped by, and gave me his copy of the house key. Since he was planning on seeing my Mother, I asked if he could take some clothes to her. He left joking about looking like a bag-man. Morris has been really helpful throughout all of this.
Ralph C. turned up soon after. I passed over a hefty pile of gardening books as well as several years worth of Georgina Horticultural Society Meeting minutes to him. Mom used to be the club's secretary, and thankfully I had not put the voluminous notes and minutes in the recycle bin. Ralph is a retiree from Revenue Canada, and I asked him some questions regarding my Mother's tax papers. Turns out I only needed to keep the past 3 or so years worth of tax papers, rather than the 7 I had assumed. Less paper for me to haul home.
By this time it was time for me to head to the lawyers office. It wasn't far, so I walked. I walked pass the place that used to be "Keith's Real Estate" (I liked the name, for obvious reasons ;-) where I remember, when I was 3, my Father signing the papers to buy the place. And here I was, over 30 years later, about to sign it away.
The visit to the lawyer's office was short -- no more than 15 minutes or so, and I just signed my name a bunch of times to various papers, and handed in a copy of the front door key. Done. Just like that.
I headed across the street to get myself a submarine, and just as I was about to head back I noticed a new Bell Mobility store. Since the phone line in the house had been disconnected, and I could do with one, I popped in to see if I could get a cheap-ish cell phone. I walked out with a Motorola V120C phone, and was activated by the time I got home.
I called LaRue's Waste and Haulage service, as the trash bin hadn't arrived yet. I was told I'd have it before day's end. So I kept on bagging stuff, hoping that the bin would arrive sooner rather than later.
A vain hope. I used the cell phone a lot that day, primarily calling LaRue's.
By 5:30 I'd pretty much bagged everything there was to be thrown out, but still no bin. I could have stayed the night, but there I didn't really feel like staying in an essentially empty house, and I wanted to sleep in my own bed.
I walked to the bus stop. Waited. About 5 minutes of waiting I saw a very beefy truck with a large dumpster pull into Pleasant Blvd. There was only place it could be going to. I pondered the idea of going back, but the light was failing, I was bagged out, and the urge to get home and see my family was stronger than my desire to head back to my Mom's place and throw things into the bin.
So I would have to return on Sunday to finish the job.
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