This will probably prove to be my biggest housecleaning challenge: throwing out my father’s music. My siblings did not want them when my parents died, nor their huge box of pictures, or mom’s wedding vow-renewal dress & bouquet, Daddy’s moldy scratched 78s, Mom’s handwritten recipes.....the list seems endless. So I took them, not because I wanted them, but because it felt disrespectful to throw them out. These were things that had mattered to them. How do you just throw away the evidence that they once lived and loved and cooked meals and played music? I’ve held on to all these reminders of who they were because I hoped they would see and would know how hard I’ve tried to do things the way they’d want me to. But they’ve been gone awhile now. And their “things” are more often just painful reminders of less-than-ideal relationships. I know I did the best I could to be a good daughter and to make up for the times I was not. I think I am ready to start letting go of this sense of responsibility to them. I’m ready to live whatever’s left of my life with a little more freedom. So I’m starting today, with these. spring formal dresses ?