When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, I’ll be Cleaning Out My Office

People say you see your life flash before your eyes when you are dying. I saw my sister-in-law peering into my second-floor office, shaking her head in disgust.
 
If you “friend” me on Facebook or in real life, you probably know that I had a weird, serious illness that landed me in the hospital last week. (I won’t go into details, because I might want to poach my experience for a few more blog posts.) There were several points that I actually thought I might die.

You may be familiar with that lovely thought, meant to get you to slow down and smell the roses: “Nobody wishes on their deathbed that they had spent more time at the office.”

It’s a boldfaced lie.

When I was dialing 911 from on the side of Rt. 58 in Southside Virginia after nearly passing out behind the wheel of my car, my first thought was not, “Am I ready to meet my Maker?” but, “I can’t die yet – I’ve got too big a mess to clean out!”

My sister-in-law is Martha Stewart on a budget. She is the best homemaker I know that isn’t on TV with a paid staff. That, plus she has a job, keeps the books for my brother’s business and helps to take care of both her mother and mine.

Back during my salad days when I was going to be liberated and famous for something, I didn’t place much value in a perfectly organized spice rack. But since nobody ever showed up at the door from either Random House Publishing or Publishers’ Clearinghouse and shoved money and adoration at me, I’ve since learned to appreciate the domestic skills that others cultivated from imitating their mothers, reading Good Housekeeping and watching the Food Channel. And I recognized long ago that I fall dreadfully short.

I tend to compare all the worst parts of myself to the very best traits in multiple people so that I can more successfully feel like a failure. I’m not as good a writer as Joan Didian, Annie Proulx or Annie Dillard, so I should just forget it. I can’t sing like Joni Mitchell or Joan Baez, so I’m a choir drop out. I’ll never look like Christy Brinkley, so why exercise?

And if I did nothing but clean and decorate, my house would never look as nice as my sister-in-law Debbie’s. Even after Christmas morning when the grandkids have opened presents and had a sugar meltdown. I’m telling you, she actually has shelves in her house that are empty. I’m in awe.

If there’s a gene for organizing stuff and visualizing how pillows and drapes will look together once you get them off the sale rack and into your house, I missed it. I used to slop a pretty mean paint brush, but I’ve given that up because it hurts my arthritis.

On my dad’s side of the family, there were relatives who were very tidy, and then there were those … one in particular … who was an infamous hoarder. She saved every can, string and meat paper, until finally she had to move out of the house and into the barn with the cow.

My pack rattedness isn’t quite that bad yet. I don’t have a barn or a cow. If I did, I’d move the cow out. Think of all the plastic storage containers you could stack in there.