If yer gonna be a hoarder...

Certainly you've heard about hoarders. People who pack their homes beyond bursting with stuff, mostly garbage. You may even know one.

Mom was a hoarder. Oy vey.

I walked in today with another box of her hoard.

"BEN! Again?" said the ladies behind the counter.

Yup. Again. It won't be the last either. I'm slowly whittling down the stuff she left behind. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, the bottom of the box, the clear path to the other side or however you wanna put it.

Shag took care of part of the horde already. Jugs filled to the top. Whew.

I'm taking care of another part of the horde.

Today's tally, $25.50. Today's weight? According to the Internet, probably 45 pounds or so.

If you are gonna be a hoarder, there are worse things to have laying around. Mom hoarded coins.

I've already spoken about sorting coins with her and how much I want to do it one more time. That's not gonna happen. So, I sit and roll the stash she left behind. We're down to the loose pennies now. Those jugs Shag commandeered, pennies in whisky jugs. Those went to one of those automatic sorting machines that takes a percentage of the total.

I'm cool with that.

I have to admit I have thought about dumping all those pennies in a wheelbarrow and rolling that in to some place where Mom owed money. They'd have to take it. Pennies are legal currency in the US for all debts, public or private. But she was on good terms with the few people she owed money to, so that didn't happen.

She sorted money by age and type. I have a few steel pennies. I have one 1901 Indian head penny and a few rolls of wheat pennies. You can still find them every now and then. She also sorted the 100 percent copper pennies from the new ones that are mostly zinc. The good stuff is back in a safe deposit box. The others, the ladies at the bank took the rolls and made a deposit for me.

Probably have a handful left, maybe $2-$3 left to roll.

It made her happy to sort the mounds of change I brought her. That's why I did it.

Little things, like this, remembering her sitting there sorting and being happy the whole time, that's helping me get through this. It also hurts to remember it, because I'll never get to do it again.

Soon, I'll reach the end of Mom's hoard, except for the good stuff locked safely away. I've thought about keeping a roll or two because, well, Ma, but that's not her. It's not even a good representation of her. I know what she wants. Her instructions were explicit and said many times.

We're gonna have a party, down on the river. These rolled coins are going to buy drinks and food. We will celebrate her life in the way she wanted and she's paying for it, exactly the way she wanted.