What's in the Pantry

About once a month I drive to Maryland from North Carolina to work from my parents home and spend time with them. I can cook for them, talk with them, organize things and just take care of in person those things you cannot fix over the phone.

One of the tasks I assign myself is to go through the food cabinet, that I call the pantry, and organize it; throwing out old and moth infested items. My mother who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's about two years ago has a bent toward buying too many of certain things. I would use the word "hoard" but she is far from that, although without my father fighting against it his entire life and me the past few years it could have easily happened.

Cleaning the pantry the first time was overwhelming - it was filled to the brim with bulging and exploded cans, bags and boxes of items that were infested with moths and moth casings. It took an entire day to clean the cabinet, dispose of the items, organize what remained into labeled plastic baskets. When I was finished it was beautiful! I gave my parents a tour of where each type of food could be found: soup, vegetables, tuna, etc.

The next month on my visit, I opened the cabinet door and it was like one of those nightmares you have where you close the door and you've traveled back in time to before you did all the work. There were things stuffed everywhere - even dishes! The only difference was there were no exploded or bulging cans. I set to work and organized again. Now, every time I visit, I go through the same task, with more surprises revealed on each visit. If I get there every month, I can generally keep control, but if I miss a month it quickly gets out of control and takes much more work.

On this trip, as I was organizing it occurred to me that our lives are much like the pantry. We pile up "stuff" out of fear that we will need it, that we will run out, that we won't have enough. Then we have so much:

• We cannot see, find, or get to what we already have.
• We cannot afford to help those who need help.
• We cannot afford to take care of a real emergency when it occurs.
• What we have goes bad before we get a chance to use it
• We are so concentrated on taking care of our things we do not notice those in need around us who are really in need.

I'm cleaning my parent's pantry again this month. But I'm emptying my personal pantry so I can focus on others instead of me.