Will it make her smile?

"Is there anything in it that will make her smile?"

That is what I said to my husband after he had boxed the bulk of what remained of my mother's stuff.  And then I, my mind racing through the dirty, dusty, jumbled heap of things that I know is in those boxes, burst into tears.

My mother apparently has found an apartment.  That is great.  Apparently she starts a job soon.  Also great. I really hope it is true, and if it is, that it sticks.  But regardless, she wrote to us and asked us to send her her stuff.  This was in the last few days of cramming for my preliminary exam and I was fairly useless around the house to begin with (which isn't to mention the emotional pit I land in whenever I deal with her belongings anyway), so my husband said he would take care of it.  And he has.  From corresponding with her to reboxing her stuff and going to ship it, he has taken care of it quietly.

But there was a component of it for which I was needed.  I realized that when her stuff first came to us one and a half years ago, or so, I looked through to see what personal, private, or important family things were in those boxes.  The main things I salvaged from those jumbled boxes were pictures.   Pictures from my childhood, my sister's childhood, and pictures from my mother's childhood and earlier.  My sister helped me with this process and put most of the pictures in albums.

The albums have resided on a shelf in my office ever since.  I realized that one of the things she might want from her stuff is her pictures.  But are they her pictures?  It is hard to say at this point.  I really don't want to deal with a call next year from Boston saying "Hey, you don't know me, but I feel strange throwing out family photos and I'm cleaning out all this stuff today." Which is basically the call I got one and a half years ago and which is why I have them now in my possession.

There are happy pictures in those albums.  Pictures from other phases of life where her illness wasn't running so rampant.  Pictures of happy kids and pets and grandparents and camping and silliness and Christmas...

In not sending these pictures I feel almost as if I am denying her the joy of those memories, but I am not sure I want to allow those memories to possibly be lost again to me either.

I realize as I write this that the "pictures" are analogous to really a lot more than just photographs, and that just goes to show that my feelings can still be pretty raw about all of this.

I came to my husband as he was boxing up the rest of the stuff and said, you know I'm not sure which of these pictures to give.  I haven't checked with other family to see how they feel and I am not sure myself how I feel.  I am just coming out of three days of prelim headache and haven't truthfully given it much thought until this morning.

He told me not to worry about the pictures.  We can always send them later, he said.  For now he has seven huge boxes to send as it is.  He is right and he calmed me down.  But then I asked, is there anything in there that will make her smile?

And I'm pretty sure there is not.  And the thing that kills me is that I still want to make her smile.  And I don't know what to do about that.