When I was born, she lived in a four-bedroom house, but later moved to a two-bedroom unit in a retirement community and finally to a room at the Nursing and Rehab Center. I had the task of coaxing her into significantly paring down her possessions and trying to help her prioritize what she really needed, which was quite difficult for someone who had dementia and a lot of stuff. With only a few days to help her make the move into the nursing home, it was easy to get distracted among the other pressing tasks, such as weeding through drawers full of documents for not just important things like retirement and bank accounts, but also for utility bills for a house she didn't own any more and vaccination records for a dog decades long dead. While simultaneously shredding papers, I convinced her to part with her cookbooks and piles of recipes clipped from magazines and newspapers (while wondering whether or not this would be me in 60 years) since she wouldn't be doing any cooking for herself anymore, but not with the fur coat with a rip in the side. I made sure she had clothing for a variety of seasons and managed to give the rest away. Some framed photographs and albums came with her, while the rest went into storage. I had boxed everything up for her and put tags on the few pieces of furniture that were to be moved to her new room and I thought I had laid eyes on every item that she was keeping, down to her socks and underwear.
But this past May, my brother and I went over after the funeral to the storage bay of the maintenance garage where the retirement home staff had stored her things they had so thoughtfully boxed up for us, and there was the tiny blue shirt "Life Begins at Lower Bucks Hospital." Scott and I laughed in disbelief. Why she had kept something like that all those years? And how did this one item make it through all the moves to a room in a nursing home?
Now I'm helping my dad downsize the contents of my childhood home and the trip down memory lane is interrupted by the need to let go for the sake of saving our own sanity and our dad's at whatever point he decides to move. In the bottom drawer of a dresser my brother and I are going to sell on Craig's List, we found a copy of an article that appeared in the newspaper my mom wrote for at the time of my birth:
An Editorial Opinion:
Welcome Kirsten!
In this age when we're plagued with problems in Iran, turmoil over China and rising inflation, it is a pleasure to announce the arrival of someone we think who may well be able to meet these challenges in the future.
She's Kirsten Susannah Harbach Partenheimer.
It's a very big name for such a little person, but her parents, Louise Harbach, editorial writer, traveler and murder mystery connoisseur, and Wayne Partenheimer, prosecutor and former journalist, feel she will grow into it.
Kirsten arrived on January 6 at 8:38 a.m., which, to her mother's delight, was before deadline, and just like her mother and father, she had some immediate comments about the state of affairs in this world.
Kirsten had not yet made her career choice know, but her parents feel she may well follow in their footsteps. The family Labrador Retriever, Comfort, hopes Kirsten will follow in his footsteps -- all four of them.
Even if she doesn't select a career in journalism or the legal profession, as proud parents we feel she'll select a worthwhile endeavor that will not only enrich her life but make things a bit nicer for all of us.
Upon reading the first line, I decided that, sadly, not much as changed in the world the past three decades. But I am heartened by the idea that despite the turmoil in the world, the arrival of a new baby is positive news and something which we can celebrate. I won't have a column of space in the editorial section of the local paper to craft some witty announcement of Baby P.C.'s arrival, but perhaps with this blog I'm following in the writer footsteps of my parents - 21st century style.
What a beautiful article about your birth, so lovely you found it. Thinking of you and sending you love, Alison
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