DOWNSIZING MY LIFE

by Danna Shirley (5/24/2020)

I have this compelling encouragement from the Lord to get my house in order. I'm 72 years old now and I've had this feeling for the last year or so (2019-20). Little by little I would run across something stored in a closet and think I should pass it along to one of the children. It does no good to keep it hidden away for no one to enjoy.

The first items I encountered were the Plank Owner Certificates from my husband, Ron's, ships that he worked on in Pascagoula, MS. I had a set of three for each of the children and passed them along.

Next, when I had my house painted and removed all pictures from the walls, I only hung a few back up. I've decided to give the rest away to friends and/or different organizations.

Then I pulled out all of my pictures over the last fifty years that have been stored in shoe boxes in my closet, under the bed, and in various other places. As I got them all together, I sorted by family, friends, and locations. I realized if I didn't organize them now, my daughter would not know who or what to do with them when I'm gone and would probably throw them away. She did give me a "Thank you, Mom, I really appreciate you taking care of these now." 😊

I decided to return the pictures to the appropriate families just in case they didn't have the same copies I had. This was quite an undertaking. I received a few calls from family and friends thanking me for the pictures. My cousin, James, was very appreciative since he lost all pictures of himself as a child when his mother's house burned down in one of the California fires. Just when I thought I had completed this project, I found two more albums full of pictures in my entertainment center and started all over again.

I've gone through boxes in the garage and shredded lots, and lots, and LOTS of old paperwork over the last sixteen years. I say only sixteen years, because I also did this once before when I moved from Mississippi to Tennessee in 2004. At that time, I had file drawers full of paperwork since Ron and I had married in 1968. I filled to the brim seven BIG garbage bags of shredded documents. It's good to clean out clutter and cobwebs every decade or so.

I found a bin with five of my childhood dolls and Mother Goose books my mother had saved for me. The dolls looked pretty ratty but also inside was my favorite, a monkey. I also found several 45 rpm's from my teen years; Elvis, Bobby Darrin, The Everly Brothers, and more.

I really found a treasure when I opened a box of my grandmother's crocheted doilies and other keepsakes. She died in 1992 when we lived in Japan and my sister graciously saved some of her things for me. Now I am passing those beautiful doilies down to my daughter and granddaughters and also returning some to my two sisters.

One of my huge projects, as well as a very sentimental one, is to go through Ron's Navy papers and organize them by date, etc. I want to make copies and give a set to each of my children. He was active duty Navy for twelve years and then worked on Navy contracts in Pascagoula, MS and Sasebo, Japan until his death in 2003.

When ALL is settled and finished to my satisfaction...and to God's, I will say, "Okay, Lord. You can take me home now. I'm ready!" Praise His holy name.