Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
It was also where the emotional turmoil and pain of the remaining sister was the most evident. Maisie struggled in the last years of her life here. Though no one had described her to me as being angry or seeming especially sad, seeing the bedroom proved otherwise. She surrounded herself in memories and reminders of the people she loved, sometimes in illogical and almost obsessive ways.
I couldn’t just assume I could pick up a bag or a box and throw it away. There might be something buried at the very bottom or in the center of what seemed like a bunch of trash that was precious and needed to be preserved. It meant every single item needed to be gone through carefully, which was going to take some time.
The quiet of being this far out could be peaceful when I wanted it to be, but when I was working on clearing it out, it felt like being in a cave. I turned on the TV and found something that could drone in the background just to make some noise, then settled in for the work.
Just as it had been when I was walking around the big house, going through the bedroom was a far more emotional experience than I would have expected. I had such little connection with these people. Just stories from my mother and some cards growing up. Nothing that ever made me feel like I had a real relationship with them.
I would have thought that would make this process easy. Without that emotional connection, the personal belongings, pictures, and other mementos I was sorting through shouldn’t have meant much. But that wasn’t how it was turning out. Instead, I found emotions building up inside me stronger and stronger the more I discovered.
It was like I was finally being introduced to these women who were so vitally important to my mother. I was finding out about who they were and everything they’d accomplished in their lives. And all this brought my mother to the front of my mind. Her loss was still so raw. There were days when I felt like I was doing alright with it and getting through. Other days the grief weighed me down, reminding me that life was never going to be the same.
Sitting in the middle of the bed, I had a new stack of letters beside me and was reading through them. They were between the sisters when one of them was traveling. It seemed they would have liked to do more things together but never wanted to leave the farm without at least one of them there to run the business. They trusted their limited employees only to a point. At the end of the day, this was the most important thing to them, and they always wanted to be involved and in control.
I found myself laughing as I read the descriptions of the trip and then the response from Maisie telling her sister what was going on at the farm. She had a sassy personality that shone through even from the old papers. They were exchanged during the time of year when work was being done to make sure the trees were growing well, and the farm would be ready for customers to visit in the coming months. The anticipation was evident. Everything rode on how well their season went each year.
After reading the letters, I tied the piece of string around the stack again and set them aside. I’d already made the decision to keep everything like this. It was my family’s legacy, and I felt responsible for holding on to it.
It was getting into the late afternoon by the time I tucked the letters in a drawer, and I thought about ordering pizza again. My diet might not have been the most balanced recently, but it was quick, easy, and delicious, and those were my top priorities at that particular moment.
I decided I could hold out for a little while longer and went back into the bedroom. The next box I pulled up onto the bed with me produced more memorabilia of the farm in its former glory. Brochures showed images of the full, gorgeous trees lined up in the field awaiting their homes for the holiday season. Another photo depicted a cleared portion of the field with a layer of fresh snow. Guests gathered around a small building with a sign advertising cocoa and doughnuts. Behind them, a bonfire looked warm and welcoming.
Papers in the box turned out to be fliers inviting people to come to the farm for caroling around the fire and horse-drawn sleigh rides through the back fields. Others offered handmade greenery and announced the opening of a shop offering ornaments, decorations, and gifts. At the bottom, aged envelopes contained holiday cards from loyal customers thanking them for another season and sharing pictures of their trees decorated with gifts beneath them and children grinning in front of them.