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Falling to Pieces and Finding Some (Human) Gorilla Glue
Five thousand more of my husband’s books left the house by a rented hauling truck, headed for New Jersey, all mysteries, mostly signed first editions in gorgeous condition. Oh good, that meant I only had another six thousand to sort, pack, and find homes for, in the shadow of Dave’s death. It sounded better than the 20,000 I’d begun with, but still …
For a while, the book problem distracted me from the money problem — but I’d double-mortgaged the house and maxed out the credit cards to get Dave safely and comfortably and yes, happily through his last years of illness. The payments added up to more than I was earning from editing, even with hours freed up from caregiving. I put the house on the market and kept trying to get the books “gone,” since I needed to empty the house in order to market it, right?
Small miracles happened: A woman I was only surface acquainted with phoned me, and said she was coming to help run my garage sale, letting go of jewelry, dishes, dozens of bookcases now emptied, and Dave’s less successful collections of clocks and railroad items. We began to build a real friendship.
Another woman volunteered to weed the front gardens, to improve the finished effect of the landscaping, toward that house sale. One kind friend waded through hundreds of pieces of art, helping me document…
