$1,000 and a trash can

I stopped by my mother's house for a few hours today. I was in her laundry room -- washing, rewashing and re-rewashing my two new pairs of jeans to reduce rub off -- and decided to work at emptying out that part of the house.

I filled up one of her alley garbage cans with three black Hefty bags full of stuff -- shoe polish and half empty bottles of window cleaner and clothes lines and spray starch and, oh, hell, I don't even remember what all. Then there was the bag of empty bottles that I was able to salvage for the recycling bin. Believe it or not, this took two hours. At this rate, we'll never get it emptied for the reverse mortgage company in time. So I told my kid sister she simply has to hire someone to help her.

We have $1,000 now to put toward that we didn't have earlier. Found some savings bonds from 2001 that I gave my mom but she never used. We were co-owners so I can cash them at will. While they will certainly come in handy now, I wish my mother had used them herself in life. That's what they were for, and they might have relieved some of her worry about money.

Oh, and $1,000 is the princely sum my older sister is putting toward our mother's funeral. That's 10%. I don't know how she thinks that's fair. But I'm trying to let it go. In the scheme of things, while this is undoubtedly going to be a pinch in the short term, a couple thousand dollars is really not that big a deal over the long haul of one's life.