'Do you want this?" I asked my sister Mary while holding up a smoked-green decanter reminiscent of the magical bottle in the old television series "I Dream of Jeannie."

As little girls, Mary and I spent countless hours pretending to be the genie who lived in a bottle vying for the love of her master, the astronaut.

"Sure," Mary replied, knowing that her two daughters would understand the sentimental value behind the fragile toy of our youth. My three sons, on the other hand, would scoff at the idea that their mother once pretended to be someone who was able to change circumstances by folding of her arms and nodding her head. It was decided; my sister would take the decanter.

Mary and I were on Day Three of cleaning out our childhood home. Mom had died in April after a short battle with cancer; Dad had been gone for more than 10 years. I was grateful that Mary made the trek out from New Hampshire to help me go through our mother's belongings. I had tried to do it on my own but found myself paralyzed when it came time to get rid of things. A sentimentalist, I found even a scrap of paper with a grocery list in Mom's curly handwriting became worthy of keeping because Mom had once touched it, wrote on it and brought it to the market.

Mary, on the other hand, had no such problem.

"Mom never liked that!" she announced when I picked up the '70s-style lamp with large

While clearing out the house, I came to value Mary's outlook on material possessions. She was always the more practical and levelheaded sister. She understood that some objects lose their value when the services they provided are no longer needed.

Her pragmatic approach was helpful; it allowed me to sort through Mom's items with less guilt and remorse. One I realized I didn't need to cling to everything of Mom's in order to keep her in my heart, it got easier to let go of the slightly stained tablecloths, the World Book encyclopedia set and the Engelbert Humperdinck albums that she used to listen to while dusting.

For five days Mary and I sifted through rooms and created donation and garbage piles while putting aside those few sentimental items that neither of us could part with. The platters used for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were kept while Mom's folk art dishes, purchased at the old catalog store BEST, were packaged for the thrift store.

Mary and I got into a rhythm of sorting through Mom's things while telling stories. We laughed. We cried. Some items helped us recall memories of our youth: the green tray used for meals when we were sick in bed, the torn map of Disneyland we got in 1978 when "E tickets" were needed, and some unfinished booklets of S&H green stamps.

The items of Mom's I now have in my possession are more than enough to remind me of her, and I don't have regrets over the things we left behind. I will think of Mom when I use her holiday platters, wear her many scarves or sift through the pictures of her youth.

I will also remember her and smile when I glance at my bulletin board and notice the small scrap of paper with the curly-written words "bread, milk, and eggs."

Carol Furnanz Alexander lives in Danville.