The "'The Box Of Stuff" Story

Some if the shredding "Stuff"

It was an ordinary day.  The floor in my office is a mess.  Just about finished shredding the last box of "stuff" that I had stored in the basement that belonged to my mom and dad.  My father, Paul, died in 2007 while my mother, Dorothea, died in 2012.  They had been married 64 years when dad died.  During those years the two of them had accumulated a tremendous amount of "stuff".  After dad died my mother remained at the nursing facility where the two of them had been for a few months together while mom tried to recover from a hernia she suffered while trying to be the caregiver for dad at home.  After dad's death it became apparent that mom couldn't stay alone in their home so we decided to sell her house.  

Photo I found that features my grandfather's football team.
My grandfather, on my father's side, is seated in front row, second
from the right. My grandfather was killed in 1926 when a bin
 of mail fell on him when he worked at the post office.

I single-handedly took care of distributing the furniture that mom couldn't take with her to her room at the nursing home.  Mom and dad had made a list of which pieces of furniture should be given to each relative and after that was done I began to sort through all the "stuff" they had in the house.  Day after day I brought box after box of "stuff" to my house to put out for the trash man.  

Photo of my father's brother Clair.  He
died in an automobile accident when
he was in high school.

All of their records I placed in boxes and brought to my house to sort through and shred what was no longer needed.  Well, the last box has just been gone through and shredded.  Did find some real old photos from my dad's side of the family, the original list of who gets what, letters my parents had saved that my brother and I sent to them when we were young, cemetery plot deeds, original deeds from houses where we lived, and .... the list goes on and on.  I'm just too sentimental to get rid of everything so I still have a rather large file folder with some of the "stuff."  What will I do with it?  I HAVE NO IDEA!  But, at least the real big box is now a real big file folder and will fit in my filing cabinet with all my other "stuff."  My guess is that I'm not the only one who has had to deal with tons of paperwork from their parents.  

My father was awarded this medal November 11, 2005.
The local government decided all living veterans of WWII
would be given medals for their service to their country.
I am passing this on to my son who bears his grandfather's name.
This, along with the above photos was some of the "stuff" I found.

But, because of this, I have begun to shred many of the files I no longer need to keep.  Do you know that you only need to keep three years of records to satisfy the Internal Revenue Service in the United States.  Also only need to keep three years of old checks.  I did read online that if you may have under-reported income by 25% or more, you'll need to keep tax returns and all related information for six years.  So if you need to keep six years of files, you have more of a problem than files of "stuff."  I'm hoping that some day my wife and children won't have to go through what I did in the past nine years.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.