Traces of You
My Dearest Love,
Almost two years after you left on your journey, I am still coming across little bits of you. Today I was cleaning out the closet in the guest room in preparation for a pickup by the Lupus Society. As I was pulling coats and jackets out of the closet, laying them out on the bed for photography, and folding them away in plastic bags ready to be picked up, I came across a little treasure trove of you.
I know that I must check all of the pockets of your clothes to collect the pieces of tissue paper you hoarded away there. I was not disappointed in my quest either, but in addition to the wadded up kleenix in one of your jackets, I found two of your inimitable lists that you could not live without.
They were shopping lists for the mundane necessities of our lives - milk, bread, eggs, TP, and so on. There are no dates on the lists, nothing to tell me where we were living or what store you were intending to buy the goods at. It might have been B.C. because on one of the lists, in the lower right hand corner, there were some menu items that never would have flown with the larvae. Things like "lentil burgers," and "pheasant soup."
There was another clue in the same pocket as the lists. It was a deposit slip from a bank and it WAS dated - August 31, 1987. We had been married one year and two weeks and were living in the slums in that lower duplex with the cockroaches and the crazy neighbors. Either that or we had just moved across the river to the quieter town and lived in that shotgun apartment with the crazy neighbors. I can't remember anymore when we made that shift.
I am always surprised at how emotional I get when things like this happen. Two years now and finding something like these little scraps of paper takes me back twenty years when our lives were so very different. I will have more of these moments as this summer progresses, as I slowly pack up the house in the woods and move things bit by bit up north to the place where I grew up on the shores of the great inland sea.
I will touch everything that you and I and our two children have made a part of our lives. Things squirreled away from our last move and never unpacked. All of the things put in the kids "save" boxes such as drawings from their earliest days of school. Just now, I came across two boxes up on the shelf in the guest bedroom closet, tucked away far over in the corner where they were hard to reach. The first one I wiggled down was still taped from our move to this house seven years ago. It said "baby things" on the outside.
When I slit the sealing tape and took off the lid, there was the little knit hat that our son wore home from the hospital. There was one hand knit bootie. There were several hand knit baby blankets. I stood there feeling quite helpless. How was I supposed to deal with this? This was so outside of my experience and comfort zone. I stood, staring at this box of baby memories for several minutes trying to decide whether they should go in the give away pile or not. I know there are many babies out there who need lovingly made blankets, but somehow, I could not make that separation. Without trying to go deeper into my self analysis, I put the treasures back into the box and carefully placed them back up on the shelf where they will be when I move them next to go with us in our next life.
This is the first time I have moved without you since we met all those lifetimes ago. I miss you.
Almost two years after you left on your journey, I am still coming across little bits of you. Today I was cleaning out the closet in the guest room in preparation for a pickup by the Lupus Society. As I was pulling coats and jackets out of the closet, laying them out on the bed for photography, and folding them away in plastic bags ready to be picked up, I came across a little treasure trove of you.
I know that I must check all of the pockets of your clothes to collect the pieces of tissue paper you hoarded away there. I was not disappointed in my quest either, but in addition to the wadded up kleenix in one of your jackets, I found two of your inimitable lists that you could not live without.
They were shopping lists for the mundane necessities of our lives - milk, bread, eggs, TP, and so on. There are no dates on the lists, nothing to tell me where we were living or what store you were intending to buy the goods at. It might have been B.C. because on one of the lists, in the lower right hand corner, there were some menu items that never would have flown with the larvae. Things like "lentil burgers," and "pheasant soup."
There was another clue in the same pocket as the lists. It was a deposit slip from a bank and it WAS dated - August 31, 1987. We had been married one year and two weeks and were living in the slums in that lower duplex with the cockroaches and the crazy neighbors. Either that or we had just moved across the river to the quieter town and lived in that shotgun apartment with the crazy neighbors. I can't remember anymore when we made that shift.
I am always surprised at how emotional I get when things like this happen. Two years now and finding something like these little scraps of paper takes me back twenty years when our lives were so very different. I will have more of these moments as this summer progresses, as I slowly pack up the house in the woods and move things bit by bit up north to the place where I grew up on the shores of the great inland sea.
I will touch everything that you and I and our two children have made a part of our lives. Things squirreled away from our last move and never unpacked. All of the things put in the kids "save" boxes such as drawings from their earliest days of school. Just now, I came across two boxes up on the shelf in the guest bedroom closet, tucked away far over in the corner where they were hard to reach. The first one I wiggled down was still taped from our move to this house seven years ago. It said "baby things" on the outside.
When I slit the sealing tape and took off the lid, there was the little knit hat that our son wore home from the hospital. There was one hand knit bootie. There were several hand knit baby blankets. I stood there feeling quite helpless. How was I supposed to deal with this? This was so outside of my experience and comfort zone. I stood, staring at this box of baby memories for several minutes trying to decide whether they should go in the give away pile or not. I know there are many babies out there who need lovingly made blankets, but somehow, I could not make that separation. Without trying to go deeper into my self analysis, I put the treasures back into the box and carefully placed them back up on the shelf where they will be when I move them next to go with us in our next life.
This is the first time I have moved without you since we met all those lifetimes ago. I miss you.
Copyright ©2003-2007 Phaedrous
posted by Phaedrous at 12:17 PM
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