"A family is a risky venture, because the greater the love, the greater the loss... That's the trade-off. But I'll take it all." - Brad Pitt

 

We are missing a few but this is a photo of us after 4 days of hard work. Dirty sweating and still smiling...

I am not even sure how to start this blog. I have so many emotions going on that I can't even function today. So forgive me if I am all over the place in this post...

As many of you know my Mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer a few months back.  Around the same time my Dad had a heart attack and had five stints put in. He was also diagnosed with the beginning of Alzheimer's. It has been a very hard year on all of us. 

My Mom and Dad made the very hard decision to move into an assisted living apartment after living in their house for 26 years. So on June 17th we all helped them pack up and move. After we got everything moved that they wanted to have we had to all decided what to do with the rest of the things they had in the house and three out buildings. After much discussion it was decided that we would have an estate sale the last weekend in July. 

Everyone in the family worked so hard to pull it off. I was told by many people to just let someone else come in and take care of it for you. But after 80 plus years of living my parents had a lot of things that needed to be sorted and gone though before we could begin getting ready to sale things. So we all took a weekend off and then it started. Everyone helped as much as they could between work and vacations. We unpacked boxes, sorted, organized and started to price things.  

On July 20th my sister Diane came from her home up north and started staying at my parents house. I took our camper van over the next day and parked it in their yard and moved in. We along with our youngest sister Linda, our spouses,  all the grandkids and great grandkids worked day and night and got it ready. In the end we had three buildings full and ready to go. Well really we were never really all done we just did everything we could. We had things priced and organized by building. We had parking roped off. We had schedules made up for workers,  and thanks to Cassie we had a social media marketing blitz. 

 I cannot express enough how much I have been overwhelmed by the people that came to help us before and during the sale. We all had friend that have never even met my parents just tell us "I can help." They gave us tables and signs to use, they came the weeks before the sale to help and the days of the sale. I will never get over the generosity of all of them taking time out of there busy schedules to come help us. 

Of course the first two days of the sale were 90 plus degrees and so, so humid. I am grateful that none of us or our costumers passed out! We were so busy the first day, we had people  parking all over the place to get in. They waited in line to check out and were so patient with us waiting to get into the buildings to shop and check out.  

I also cannot express how overwhelmed we all were with the love and kindness that was shown to all of us and to our parents. I was overjoyed to see relatives and friends that I have not seen in years. And watching all the people that have know my parents for the past 80 some years come and visit with them and talk about all the memories they have had together was so heartwarming. 

Watching the last birdhouse that my Dad had made sell made me cry, having the perfect person buy the beer can collection that all of us worked on collecting in the 70"s brought me great joy. Seeing the happiness on the faces of the wonderful women that came all the way from Minneapolis to buy the dinning room table made me so happy. When we said to them that we had a lot of memories around that table they responded with we are going to make a lot of memories around it too I was overjoyed. So many of the things we sold had so many memories attached to them for us and my parents. It was so hard to see some of it go for all of us. 

In the end the estate sale was a great success. But what sold and did not sell was not what we all took away....

It is the fact that as a family we all came together and pulled this all off. I have not spent so much time with my sisters in years. To see all of my children and nieces and nephews bond again was so fun. Every night after the sale closed we took our folding chairs out to the deck and decompressed. We laughed and we cried. I had so many people tell me during the sale how they could not believe how we were all getting along and having fun. They told me how lucky we were to have family that actually cared for each other. And I could not agree more.  

After we got the last of the things packed up to be donated and the tables and taken down and it was time to tell everyone goodbye I think we all were overcome with emotion. The love we all have for each other and the heartache that we have for what Mom and Dad are going though is overwhelming. We are all exhausted mentally and physically but its okay because that is what you do for those that you love.....

When we were trying to get a picture of all of us that were still there my Dad thought he was pretty funny...He likes to tell us he might not remember everything but he still has his sense of humor.

As the sunset as we were driving away we all had tears in our eyes from sadness, gratitude, happiness and love.....

Tell your family that you love them often....

Sharon