BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

Tennis Balls

I just dropped off some of my mom's medical supplies at the local Goodwill.  They wouldn't take the commode though, but they took everything else.  Now, I have to find a new home for the commode, I may just end up trashing it though.

Anyways, so I drop these few items off.  One of the walkers had tennis balls on the bottom of the feet.  My mom had cut slits in tennis balls and then placed them on there.  I think she was just trying to be funny and personalize her walker.  I mean, the bottom of the other walker had rubber feet, so I imagine it wasn't a case of the walker scuffing up the floor or anything like that.

Whatever the reason my mom had for her tennis ball idea, it was just her.  She'd always do quirky things like that, sometimes they didn't really make sense, but it was her.  So, I'm there and I dropped off the one walker with the tennis balls and as soon as I dropped it off at Goodwill and was driving away... I had a thought that I should have saved the tennis balls.  I should have taken them off and saved them.  I was about to turn around to go get them...

But I said to myself, why?  I have plenty of other things that she left behind.  What would I do with two tennis balls with little cut marks in them, and on top of that they had been dragged around on the floor across various hospital rooms, and through the dialysis place...

I suppose I could have washed them.  But they've been sitting in my living room for a year now.  It just didn't make sense to keep them.  I forced myself not to turn around.  I just said to myself... They're just tennis balls.  I have so many other items to remember her by.

But the feeling that I'd lost something.  The stomach dropping feeling.  The feeling that I would regret not going back... That's how I felt, and still feel.  It's the same feeling that I felt right after I lost her.  And the feeling I felt when I finally cut her cell phone and all her voicemails were gone because I didn't know the code until the last minute and didn't have time to back them up.

I guess the thing is, how much is enough?  How much stuff do I need?  I mean, I can't keep it all.  I just decided not to go back.  Just to let it go, no matter how much I wanted to go back.

It's definitely been hard.  It was a year on November 4th.  I wish I could talk to my mom every day, but I just kind of keep chugging along.  I've got lots of friends that have been super supportive and I'm just keeping busy.  The whole estate thing is over now... Just a few final things to get through.  We're now in the process of setting up college savings accounts for my brother's and sister's kids.  I'd setup accounts for my kids, but I don't have kids.  Instead I plan to just keep that money invested and not touch it should I have kids one day, which hopefully will happen.

Anyways, so yeah, that's kind of just life at the moment.  I'm feeling nostalgic over some yucky old tennis balls.  But, I just said to myself, I have to let that stuff go.  There's plenty of other things to remember my mom by and remember her quirky personality.  Additionally she would have been thankful to know that I donated her old walker and that I'm helping to settle her estate by setting up college savings accounts for my brother and sister's kids (the grand kids).  So, I feel okay letting go of the stuff.  Just have to take a few days to be okay with it.  The feeling of regret will subside and I'll feel a little more okay with it... Just takes time.