Clearing a house

is a long slow process, especially a house which has as many books and papers as this one does.

I spent yesterday afternoon going through boxes of papers belonging to the Senior Cat. He was a very active person in his "retirement". Others obviously believed he could run a good meeting because he was the president of more than one organisation and the secretary of at least two for a while. 

Almost all of this was before emails became so easy to send. He didn't like email correspondence. He typed his letters. We used to tease him about his typing. We told him he used the "Columbus method" - discover and land. Still, the letters were there. I recognised my own words in them all too often. He would tell me that he needed to write to someone about a specific matter and what he wanted to say. I would stand there and dictate something to him. "Go and play around with that," I would tell him. Often he would just leave it as it was, only rarely going back to add something else. He had too many other things to do to spend time composing himself. 

There were other things too. I found pamphlets about organic gardening from his time with the Soil Association. There were newsletters from Neighbourhood Watch, notes from Church council and synod meetings, minutes from meetings of his conjuring ring, notes on study skills and the English notes he used when teaching us. There were the diaries he kept while travelling - nobody can read them because they are written in his unique brand of shorthand. (He started to learn a version of Pitman's but it rapidly deteriorated into something only he could read - sometimes.) 

I went through it all because one must. There might be something there that is of some real value is always the thought. I did save a few things of interest to the family. I saved the wills belonging to his parents. They will go into the clan archive. I saved enough to be evidence of his involvement for the same purpose. It may never be used but it will be there if someone in the generations who follow want to do more to the family "tree". 

The rest has gone into the recycle bin. I know there is no point in keeping it but... that "plop" into the bin made my heart plummet too.  My mother put out all her papers before she died. We begged her not to throw her diaries out but she did. She threw out almost everything belonging to herself. We have a couple of photographs but all her papers are gone. It is almost as if she didn't want to exist after her death. 

It has been hard to go through the Senior Cat's papers but I am grateful I could because there are so many good reminders there.