Stupid Girl

Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Luke 12:15


I read this verse this morning as I was praying. Not knowing I was going to learn the depth of a lesson pertaining to it not 3 hours later.


I went to help Annette this afternoon. When I got to her house, the real estate broker was there taking pictures of various rooms to put it on the market. For most people, this might not be the most stressful event you could imagine. For Annette, you would have thought someone was intentionally destroying her house.

As the broker moved items off tables and chairs, Annette fussed and moaned and cursed and ordered (yes, ordered. My pride has been taking a beating, being commanded by an 85 year old woman) me to help the broker move things from their respective places to the floor so the room could be photographed.

Which, again, for most people is not that big of a deal. Unless you literally have hundreds of figurines and paintings from Italy, sterling silver basins and pitchers filled with stale, uneaten candies in crystal bowls from Spain, a hand-painted 15 piece porcelain tea set from China, Persian rugs, and many other valuables. All arranged in their own position, with pieces of napkin underneath them so the tables they sit on aren't scratched (as if anyone has moved or used any of them in 20 years). She ordered me to unwrap and re-wrap literally thousands of dollars of hand painted pictures from famous artists in Italy, complaining that "I was doing things all wrong and what was I, stupid? Why was I so slow? What was wrong with me? If she wasn't so damned crippled, she'd do things herself, but she's sick, not well, no longer able to do anything. Oh for days past. Oh for youth".
Amazingly, Annette remembered the specific placement, tilt, angle and setting of every piece we moved. She'd glare at the dining room and huff in disgust (and lack of breath) and with a "What's wrong with you, that doesn't go there...why didn't you put a napkin underneath, now the damn table will be scratched" she'd order me to move another piece, another time, to another place. If I moved too fast, or grabbed what she deemed was too much, she'd quickly and loudly berate me and tell me to be careful, these were her things. She knew how much she had paid for each item, where she'd gotten it, a story associated with each of her thousands of things, most of them sitting in their original wrappings-unused.

As she talked to the broker (who kept shooting me sympathetic glances) about me as if she owned me (get Alysa to move those things, that's what she's here for. Alysa will help you, just make her do what you need her to, etc.) and talked to me as if I was useless (what's wrong with you girl, can't you move faster than that? Let's go, how long does it take to put something where I tell you to?) I got angrier and angrier. How dare she talk to me as if I was her personal slave (though even at $10 and hour, I was beginning to feel like it). How dare she comment on me being stupid when she couldn't even remember what day it was? And slow? Really? Who was out of breath after hobbling 20 ft. from the living room to the kitchen?

Yeah. I know. I'm super adorable when I get mad. It's a gift.
I wanted to yell at her "I don't care about the stupid placement or the stupid price of your stupid things that you are going to sell anyway!" But I didn't. I just did what she asked me to do, fuming at each insult that was sent my way. Why was she so controlling about her things? I didn't understand, and it only added to my anger.

When we finally took a break because she could no longer stand upright to micromanage the reassembling of her living and dining room, we went to the kitchen, where she again ordered me to sit. She winced and scowled as she glanced around her kitchen, huffing and puffing from the exertion of walking 10 ft. without her cane.
"I tore up so many letters this morning, Alysa" she began in her shaky voice. I sat silently, waiting. "They were my love letters, from the man I was going to marry. I left him though. I wanted my career. He died ten years ago. I tore them up and threw them into the trash". She stared at the floor as the silence loomed over our heads, my unspoken attempt at comfort staying secure behind my closed lips. For Annette, there is no comfort. There are no words that can be spoken. Because the pangs of regret that course through her cannot be reasoned away, the choices she made were done so in stone. She realizes that her house, and her life, are filled with the kind of things whose worth is disposed of by time: dust collects, cracks propagate, edges yellow and bright colors fade. The pain that is her constant companion stems from the dawning reality that her life was never filled with the kind of things who's value time increases: memories of friend's laughter, of a family bound together with love. All she has left are her things. All she ever really had were her things.

She has often spoke to me of her greatest regret in life, of not marrying and having children. After she graduated fashion school in New York, she chose, against her parents' wishes, to accept a job offer in San Antonio. She had explained that in those days, travel was expensive and rare; coming to Texas was leaving her family behind. In the 50's and 60's, women weren't given the choice of having a family and having a career. It was one or the other. And a career she had. She developed her own business here in San Antonio, and sold exclusive rights to Saks Avenue and Nordstroms, selling her top of the line children's clothes. She frequently took trips to New York, and traveled all over Europe on business. She rubbed shoulders with the finest in society, managing her employees and business with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue. Each trip to Europe resulted in clothes and jewelry and shoes and purses and trinkets and statues and vases worth hundreds of dollars 50 years ago, and even more now. All of her things that have sat in empty rooms and abandoned closets, never used or enjoyed, just hoarded out of sight. Things that were once valuable to society because they were the trend, they were in, they were wanted. Now, the only value they hold is in Annette's memory, and she cannot understand why no one values them any longer. The things she poured her life into were black holes that never gave her anything back, only took from her. She no longer fits in the $600 dress she bought for her tenth trip to New York-it's going to the boys and girls home to be sold for $5 on sale. The clothes she wouldn't send her sister when she got sick before she died, those will be given away to Salvation Army and sold for hundreds less than they were bought for. The carvings and statues and chests from Italy will be auctioned off to strangers who don't care when she bought them, or how much she paid for them, or what they represent to her.



And as I sat and listened to her slight wheezing and watched as her teary, cloudy eyes scanned the floor, as if looking for an escape, I realized that the sharp words and disapproval in her voice towards me were an outpouring of her heart. This woman, who was the very picture of success 50 years ago, whose life was as carefully manicured and constructed as the valuables around her house, now lives in a tomb, with only her things to keep her company. Her things that she never used, never enjoyed, that are no longer wanted, no longer needed, that serve as a reminder of all she gave up to posses them. And the relationships she never invested in, the people she never reached out and responded to, the joy she refused to acknowledge are gone. She will never get what could have been back. 


And as I closed her front door and walked to my car, I pondered the many investments one can make with their life. Those that last, and those that fade. Those that are eternal, those that are fleeting. The intangible things that will follow me forever, and those that will be lost forever.


And I am a little more wary now. Because it is a scary reality, when your life might one day consist of the abundance of things you do not posses.