Down in the basement, there are 3, maybe 4 boxes filled with school projects, test papers and knick-knacks that our grown up kids built. They're taking up valuable space in my office.
Every time I ask my wife to join me in a campaign to rid the basement of unneeded clutter, the same thing happens. When she gets to those boxes, she pauses to look at the pile and sighs. At that point, the campaign is over. The boxes go back into the stack they came from. She cannot find it in her heart to throw out anything that reminds her of the innocent years.
I, too, have a big project I may never get around to doing. I have about 40 hours of home videos that need to be converted to DVD. We have also reduced the number of photo frames around the house, but it still looks cluttered.
Items that help us remember are all over the house. I have stopped making excuses for that clutter when visitors arrive. I lie about it, "we're renovating. He he."
At this point, I was going to wish for - perfect memory (with an echo)! Wouldn't it be great if I could just access my own memories on command. For example: "Ah, yes. At 1340H on March 16, 1988, Mike plugged a rosary into the wall outlet, flew back from the huge shock that fused the rosary parts together. No injuries, but my wife still ran around in tears while carrying him. Still don't know how the kid got past the socket protector. Our inebriated neighbor offered to drive us to the hospital, and naturally we declined. A scary moment, but memorable. Sigh."
Perfect memory also has its pitfalls. If we remember everything, we could be storing details that are not important: "I remember there was a dime on the floor, and the cat scratcher commercial was on TV."
Also, we need to forget certain things, like bad blood and arguments that were resolved. No, I am not going to wish for (run the echo machine here again) - perfect memory!
What I really wish for is a way to bottle our most cherished memories. And then recall them in moments of reflection (I've already wished for that on Day 10 of the 12 Wishes of Christmas in 2006).
Thank you, sis, for the wish idea.
--o--
While on this topic, I want to mention an excellent children's book that is also for adults. If you haven't heard of it, it is called Love You Forever, by Robert Munsch. He wrote the book to remember his two stillborn babies. I bought one for my wife and one for my mother. It has already sold 15 million copies.
No comments:
Post a Comment