The last box

“Oh my gosh. I don’t want to open that box.”

Moving furniture and books and clothing is easy. It’s moving memories that is hard.

I am going through the last of my boxes. I used to say I was not a packrat. I thought I was more like my mother than my dad. My dad might tuck a piece of wood away, thinking it would find a use someday. My mother would be of the opinion that it’s easier to buy a board when (and if) it was needed. Generally, it wasn’t.

This approach keeps my parents’ house very tidy — with the possible exception of one small room in the basement where my dad keeps his wood collection.

It turns out, I am not at all like my mother.

I have filed things away that will never find any purpose whatsoever other than to remind me of things I did and used to care about that I no longer do. For the last few days, I’ve been emptying the box.

Photos from when we used to take real photos, letters from people who cared about me, certificates indicating I accomplished something or another, reviews that mentioned my name, currency from foreign countries I will never visit again, 100+-year-old spectacles (why?), a lovely handheld fan my former mother-in-law gave me, clever things I wrote when I was in the fifth grade (really?), recipes in my grandmother’s handwriting and even (I am embarrassed to admit) my old teddy bear.

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