Selling the Family

Selling the Family shares the reflections of a sole surviving family member as she sorts several generations of belongings for a final estate auction, a quintessential experience in rural America.

The setting is a 33-acre property in southwestern Wisconsin, a forested coulee on the Mississippi River, but the story is reflective of any rural setting in the Upper Midwest.

Nancy Kay Peterson recounts the deaths of her immediate family and watches an auctioneer's staff organize the sale of what to the family were thoughtfully acquired possessions collected over several lifespans. She sees childhood treasures tossed together for bundled bids, her father's WWII memorabilia appraised, gifts given laid out for re-sale, unsaleable household goods thrown into the trash.

As the staff works, Nancy "saves" what she can by giving items away to friends - "grandmother's quilts and doilies, never used egg coddlers, silver appetizer forks, Norwegian sweaters." She picks up useful items like poster putty, but also rescues the unnecessary -- her sister's small wooden puffin and her brother-in-law's Norwegian bottle opener.

As she watches the meaningful property in her relatives' eyes being transformed into merchandise to be sold or simply trashed, Nancy relives the memories she will never again be able to share with someone else who remembers them, too. Just before the auction, she strews the ashes of her sister and brother-in-law on the land they loved, and as she walks the property one last time, she examines the depth of her grief.

While the story is melancholy, it's telling is honest, rather than sentimental, cathartic, rather than debilitating, and ends, as it must, on a thin note of joy and gratitude for the love once shared.