Whisked Away

If there was a word that existed to define the opposite of a hoarder, it would indeed describe my mother, a minimalist who disliked clutter of any sort.  Our home was beautiful, warm, open and airy but devoid of any type of knickknack, or paraphernalia she deemed unattractive or cumbersome. A snapshot of our living room: sheer white linen curtains, a simple, beige sofa two tasteful paintings which hung amid otherwise bare white walls and a coffee table on which a Crystal Waterford bowl sat center.. A baby grand piano was tucked neatly in the corner of the room and placed atop it, only two lone items, a framed family photo and the small Belleek China Scotty dog, my Irish born mother so loved. 

We all learned quite early on not to leave anything within her reach or it would simply disappear, forever.  We had a theory, my sisters and I, that all those belongings, mostly certain items of clothing, were shipped off to her beloved homeland Ireland.  We imagined our Irish relatives and their friends the delighted recipients of the new American fashions which would arrive in a large parcel carefully wrapped in simple brown paper, stamped “overseas.”

I don’t know how this idea was formulated among us.  Had we heard my father in anger accusing my mother of this rather underhanded deed when he could not find his adored sweater? Had we seen a large UPS box tucked away in a hall closet? Had we heard my mother speaking to a distant relation in hushed tones, promising a shipment would soon arrive? No I do not believe we ever had absolute evidence, it was just a truth we knew existed, though one we could never quite prove.

My best friend Louise, once left her prized jean jacket at my house. I swallowed hard three days later when she came to my door ready to reclaim it.  Ransacking the house together I finally shook my head in defeat and told her she must have left it elsewhere. But deep down I knew the unpleasant truth… it was no doubt en route that very moment, via Aer Lingus, to greener pastures.

Another time, my college roommate came home with me for the weekend and left her favorite sweatshirt in my room. She too would never see it again. I imagined another teenage girl, but this one Irish by birth, clad contentedly in the Manhattan College sweatshirt, perhaps strolling the banks of the Liffey on one of those chilled and damp Irish morns or sipping a Guiness in a local pub hugging the American made sweatshirt close.

My sisters and I were swimmers and divers and over the years accumulated many trophies, a result of our efforts.  Years later as young adults, we noticed their absence and asked my mother where the trophies had gone. Silence.  Our school yearbooks too had a short life span, as did report cards, photographs and our childhood artwork.  And at Christmas, our annual tree trimming, generally a happy and festive time, on more than one occasion ended in angry words and confrontations as ornaments usually of the bulky or unattractive variety, evaporated into thin air.  “Check another box,” my mother would suggest.

I think it was my father who bore the brunt most deeply.  He would sit in his recliner on Sunday mornings, peacefully reading the papers. Leaving for a short time to drive me to a friend’s house, he returned to find the papers he had left at the foot of his chair, not fifteen minutes before, gone.  He would later find them stacked neatly in the garage, whisked away before he even had the chance to get through the sports page.

My father loved going to tag sales on weekends. A voracious reader, he sought out interesting novels bearing tales of war and far away voyages; many of the tomes old and yellowed. I recall one Saturday, him returning home toting a large box. Entering the back door he came face to face with my mother, who glancing at the box remarked somewhat hostilely, “More bloody books!”  Witnessing the exchange I worried little. There was no doubt their shelf life in our home, would be short lived.

Was there a method to her madness? I think she simply disliked excess and when she felt we had too many items of clothing we had not worn in a while, decided it was time for them to be on their way.

You might think that this habit of my mother’s caused anger, frustration and hurt within our family. Sometimes true, but it only lasted a day or two being that we could never really prove it was of her doing. Though while looking at a Christmas card one year of my four beaming Irish cousins, I could swear the youngest was clad in my old rolling Stones tee-shirt.

As an adult, I too dislike over accumulation and clutter. I am of the school that less is more.  I understand my mother’s obsession with less more clearly now. I don’t agree with donating others belongings without permission though have been tempted on more than one occasion, to “whisk away” a number of my husband’s college sweatshirts.  I refrain.

And on those days I long to look at an old high school yearbook, I return to my old friend’s house. The one whose jean jacket went missing.