The Keys to My Moms Life

Keys. They open things when people are alive but they are no longer needed when someone passes away.

My mom has gone to her heavenly home, off dancing in the clouds with my dad, I hope. She no longer needs the material things she left behind. In many cases, no one does.

Still, anything she once touched, or used, or needed takes on a new meaning now that she is gone. That includes all her keys. Big, small, old and rusted in some cases. Many marked with masking tape or magic marker, but clearly for things that no longer exist — like her old car and the old front door of the house she lived in for 49 years.

I sorted out any keys that were to something I knew about. But the rest are essentially useless. Still, I cannot find the heart to dispose of them.

Her things still have the energy of her life well-lived. A life so full she had a gazillion keys to many doors, to offices and homes. She worked until she was 91 and had a huge ring of keys for the workplace — private offices, the kitchen, the big fridge where she had to lock up the food served at the senior center she ran.

And she lived a life of taking care of others. Bringing food to elderly or troubled neighbors and friends, entrusted with their keys so she could get into their homes to help with one thing or another. I watched her do this all my life, helping people. Sometime random people. And she probably ended up with their keys too.

And then there were all the little boxes she loved and left behind. Or keys to boxes and metal containers that many that no longer existed (or that I could not find).

I found keys, including those below, throughout my mother’s house and have yet to identify them all. I marveled at their existence. That she saved them.

I tried every key in every door and gave any of those worked to the new owners of her house, like all the front door and back door keys that I could find. I threw out some of the gross keys that were super dirty and sticky.

But these remain.

Keys from my mother’s life.

A life in which she embraced responsibility wholeheartedly. A life in which she saved everything. A life in which all her stuff mattered to her.

I feel like should make jewelry out of these for my family. I will think about how to make them into something special for my sisters and the many grand kids my mom loved and adored.

It’s funny how little items like these are imbued with different sentiment when a loved one is gone.

Maybe in my mom’s death these can be her special keys to her universe that open the doors to our inheritance of love, wisdom and strength.