The Kitchen Table: Releasing Attachments

Now that the decision has been made to sell the family homestead, my sister Ann and I need to divide up the “stuff.” We’ve managed to put this off until our last night. We have 6:45 A.M. flights back to our respective homes in California and Massachusetts from the Sioux Falls Airport, a one and a half hour drive from our hometown of Yankton. We need to be up at 3:00 A.M. to get on the road in time.

It is now 12:30 A.M. and we are wandering through my parents’ home, looking at all that remains of our parents’ lives. Because my mother died suddenly and my father became blind, they did not have the opportunity to clear out their home in their own way. It remains like a movie set – just the way it was when they were living here. I keep expecting them to enter, stage left, and deliver their familiar lines.

“Well, there are the travelers!” my dad will say.

“It’s so wonderful having you home,” my mom will add.

I can feel their soft, warm bodies embracing me in loving hugs.

It’s an odd feeling. I know what is left behind is only material “stuff,” but since it is all I have left of them, I have somehow imbued the objects with my emotional attachment to my parents. We are trying to decide who will take what. I know my sister well enough to know that we feel attached to the same things.

We have fixated on the kitchen table in the family room, which was the gathering place for the family through three generations. My sister and I spent endless hours at this table doing our homework, while my dad sat at the other end doing medical records. Without leaving his chair, he could place logs on the fire while South Dakota blizzards howled outside. My high school boyfriend was expected to spend at least ten minutes sitting at the table, conversing with the family, before he could take me out for the evening. Our family laughed and talked and ate here during decades of family reunions.

An epic battle is raging inside me. I can’t bear to let anything go, even to my beloved sister who misses my parents as much as I do. I am horrified by that part of myself. I judge it harshly, and then am horrified at how judgmental I can be. I want to want nothing. I want everything. I want the kitchen table, and I know that my sister wants it too.

I know Grandma would have a very simple cure,  “Let go of attachment. Add big doses of compassion and love. A freedom and natural fearlessness will result.”

As I’m struggling to find the ingredients for that soup inside myself, Ann offers me a taste of hers, “Why don’t you take the kitchen table, and that wheat lamp I know you want.” Her voice is kind and loving, filled with compassion. She is the teacher, showing me how to let go. Making it look simple, like Grandma’s recipe, she just opens her heart, pushes the obstacles aside, and releases attachment.

So, I get the kitchen table, but it is Ann who took a chance and experienced soaring through life, fearless and free. I found out that she is an awesome cook.

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