This morning, as I do every day upon waking, I moved through my house to open all the blinds, including the vertical ones hiding my sliding glass patio door overnight. I must have light in my house each day, perhaps in response to my father’s behavior as he aged and began to exhibit symptoms of dementia.
In his later years, when I’d drop by to take him to a doctor’s appointment, I’d find him sitting in his recliner, waiting, with the open front door allowing the only rays of daylight in. All the blinds on all the windows were shut and the house presented the attitude of a sealed mausoleum.
When I asked him why he never opened the blinds, he said, “‘Cause I don’t want nobody lookin’ in and seein’ what I got.”
What did he have? I wondered. While his home furnishings were serviceable, none were designed to engender envy or other forms of covetousness. I guess growing up poor during the Great Depression caused him not only to save nine cents out of every dime, that traumatic experience also led him to overvalue the things he did own, believing in some segment of his mind that others would actually steal them.
Regardless, I found his fears ridiculous because he lived on a three-acre tract in the country with few neighbors and he didn’t own anything of considerable monetary value.
What I learned after he died, though, was that he had hoarded cash. When my brother went through the then vacant house, he found stashes of $20 bills in envelopes in several closets, all of which amounted to about $4,000. Perhaps what he didn’t want “nobody seein’” was him squirreling away his ready cash.
Regardless, I hope I never succumb to any such beliefs about my material possessions and fearing people “lookin’ in and seein’ what I got.” I will open my blinds every day to the morning light.
I crave it.
Many years ago, a relative in West Virginia told the story of her mother dying and telling her not to burn the decrepit old house without checking the walls, first. After her death, the family pulled boards off the walls and found mason jars full of coins and paper money. Some of it was Confederate money!