Tying Up Loose Ends
I save too much stuff; but oddly I am rarely sorry that I have held on to something.
Many years ago, in fact, last century, when my older sister was moving from a house, she had lived in for quite a while, I saw a huge mound of mostly papers, lying on the driveway, near her garage. I asked her about the stack, as I was there to help her and her family move, and she said it was trash. As I love trash, I went out and took a look, at the papers.
Amongst other things, there were reams of her children’s school papers. I started separating the math and geography assignments, as well as some of the art work. I went back inside, and asked her again if she was sure she wanted to get rid of the things, lying on the driveway. She said that she had already saved dozens and dozens of her children’s papers and that I was welcome to whatever was there.
At the time, I had the delusion of making scrapbooks for my nieces, which would document their lives and that I would give to them, at some point, in the future. This was pre-social media and selfies, and pre not being invited to those events, in someone’s life, where you save such invitations, and glue them in a scrapbook.
Thus I scooped up a stack of my sister’s trash, and put it in my car, to be sorted, at a later date. She was of course right about the endless math assignments, nevertheless, I found it hard to part with the trash, and ended up saving all that was not soiled. I have dragged that “trash” through countless of my own moves, not only through California, but across the country, east to west, north to south, and south to north.
Oddly, a couple of years ago, I watched as my sister’s children, now married women, went through a couple of boxes, of such papers and mementos, from their younger days. I was surprised to see all that they so willingly parted with and even asked them about what they were throwing away. They were in complete agreement with their mother’s philosophy, I was a bit bewildered, but accepting.
I have so few pieces of such ephemera from my own childhood, my parent’s lives, and even less from my grandparents, that I could not imagine parting with old toys, books, drawings, or school work, but they were happy and at peace, discarding things which were now meaningless to them. I did not understand, and remember thinking they would find my attempts at scrapbooking their lives, quite foolish; but I was pleased they were happy and at peace. The boxes from their childhood did not hold the keys to unanswered questions, about their lives; I thought then and now, that must be nice.
In trying to tie up loose ends, in my own life, I have debated what to do with things which I once thought someone would like, that I am now pretty sure they could care less about. I have decided to sort, stack, label and even discard those collections of items, which I have held on to for so many years! Thus one day, there will be a box or envelope which contains letters, books, photographs, or other such things, with people’s names and contact information, and when they receive their envelope or box, I will not be around to know that what I thought a treasure is merely trash.
However, there is one exception — one little card and its envelope, which I shall mail, to my sister’s daughter, which is about to become a mother. In the stack of trash, which I scooped up that day, was the card my sister’s husband, had attached to the flowers he sent her, the day their daughter was born.
As my sister’s daughter gets ready to welcome her own daughter, I think she may find a place, in her nursery, for this little card. I wish them all the best. That is all for now.
