Disaster Downsizing – April 5

The hammering above me continued throughout the day.

A new roof was in process.  I kept the door to my office shut as I continued work on my blog.  A tremendous crash came from the kitchen and reverberated through the house.  Did one of the roofers fall through my ceiling?  Was someone hurt?  I abandoned my computer and went to see.  Nope. No one had fallen through the roof.  Just the top shelf of my dish cupboard collapsing  and unloading china and crystal unto the floor.

The doors to my cupboard were wide open.  A small plastic piece that supported the top shelf had broken and the top shelf now dipped toward the floor.  Broken plates and dishes spilled across the room. Sparkly bits of crystal mingled with the plates.  My husband and son arrived to help.  Disaster Downsizing had begun. “If I were really creative,” I told my husband, “I would save these sparkling fragments and make an amazing glass mosaic.”   But this wasn’t the time to start a new project.  I swept up the sparkly pieces and dumped them into the trash.

 I recognized fragments that were now reduced to being only a memory.

• A large crystal bowl with ruby trim, a gift from my mother-in-law.  The rest of the matching ruby crystal goblets were safe in the China cabinet. 
• An iridescent celestial bowl that my husband bought for me, symbolizing the eternal nature of our love. 
• A crystal candy dish that we received as a wedding present 55 years ago. 
• The cups that matched my Corelle dishes. The plates, saucers and bowls were still safe on the bottom shelf of the cupboard. 
• The cake plate that I won when I took Mom to play bingo at the Senior Center.
• Assorted small crystal dishes that I had collected through the years and seldom used. (That’s why they were stored on the top shelf.)
• Ten of my china dinner plates—some shattered, others chipped.  Two plates survived their descent to the floor. 

Downsizing had become easy.  No agonizing over what to keep and what to let go. Cup with no handle—discard.  Three unbroken cups, no longer part of a set—donate.  Broken or chipped plates—discard. Two dinner plates, unbroken—keep and add to the 8 plates that remain safely stored on the second shelf in the dish cupboard. 

Did the disaster happen because the roofers were hammering above the kitchen? Possibly.  Did the little plastic shelf support give way because of age?  Maybe.  Does it matter why this disaster happened?  Not really.

My mother used to say, “Every cloud has a silver lining.” My eyes could see sparkly fragments as I picked up and swept and discarded, but my mind was searching for those silver linings.  And I found them. No one was in the kitchen to get clobbered by falling glassware. There was no drive to the emergency room because someone was dripping blood.  The heirloom white punch bowl and cups, a gift from my mother-in-law, had been stored on that shelf.  Because it had been given to a granddaughter several years ago it was not part of the current disaster.

Disaster downsizing.  Done.