Keep

Today my sister and I emptied out our childhood house.  So much of my family's past all tangled up in spider webs and dust.  Because our mother saved everything.

Three piles of 60 years.  Keep, Donate, Trash.

All her angels were here and there and everywhere.  She loved angels.  There are so, so, so many.  Keep some.  Donate some.  None for the trash pile.

Old cookware.  Really old.  Mismatched dishes and glasses.  Keep some.  Donate some.  Trash some.

There was a shallow metal baking dish that she used to make fudge and brownies.  It had thousands of scores from her knife blade where she had cut them into perfect squares.  Why did we leave this in the trash pile?  If it weren't so far away, I'd go back down there and fish it out.  I want it now.  I want it.  Keep please.  Is it too late for keep?

Old bedding, old pillows, old rugs and towels that overstayed their welcome by a dozen or more years.  Trash pile.  No, wait.  Donate to a Wildlife Rescue.  Baby season is coming up and they need things like this. Donate.  Definitely donate.

Books.  So many books.  And VCR tapes.  Some still in their wrappers.  Donate some, trash some.  Keep the Bibles.

Pictures.  KEEP.  Even the ugly ones.

Pears, pickles, and who knows what in Ball Mason Jars.  Older than most of her grandchildren. Trash.  Definitely trash.

 And then there were the treasure boxes.  Three of them.  One for my sister, one for my brother, one for me.  Mama had filled them over the years and kept them safely tucked away in a closet.  Keep.  Keep.  Keep.

Top of the closet in my old room.  My baby dolls.  My old jewelry boxes with tarnished birthstone rings and tangled up chains.  A 70's mood ring.  Poor thing.  It had to work so hard.  I was such a moody teen.  Trophies, ribbons, report cards.  Damn I sucked at Algebra.  Keep it all anyway.  Keep.  

And then we were done.  

I sat in my car, piled with pieces of my past and said good bye to 2760 Smith Creek Road.  For most of my life there, its address was Star Route, Box136-B.  I don't know why the address changed.  Little else ever did.   And when I slowly drove away and watched it in my rearview, I realized that house was not empty afterall, because it was full of memories from floor to ceiling with undying love written on every wall. 

...

Back home now, car unloaded, nothing put away, just sprawled out on the living room floor. 

I sat down and opened the box my Mama filled for me.  It took all of three minutes for me to feel like a kid again.

 

Pictures of me as a baby...

My puppy Tinker's registration papers.  I loved her. She was a good dog and she lived until I was 18...

Ventriloquist.  I did that back then and she saved the pictures to prove it.  Pictures of me and my dummy who told the same tired jokes over and over and over...

Pre-teen pictures, then high school.  Pictures of my first love and me at my Jr. and Sr. Prom. Faded wrist corsages with dried up rose petals desperately clinging to their pistils, delicately reminding me they were once beautiful...

    

Honey queen pictures.  My daddy was a beekeeper.  I wanted to make him proud...

   

Me and Mama.  Me and Daddy...

Me and my brother and sister...

Happy family. 

Keep.

My head was swimming in a sea of  nostalgia.  I felt both lost and found.  

Maybe visual memories are best left unexplored on the same day you drive away from the house you were raised in.  Especially if your Mama and Daddy are in heaven and you can't tell them how much you loved being their daughter or thank them for being good parents.  Because your daddy didn't gush over your accomplishments but would beam with pride from the sidelines.  Because your mama saved every letter, every card, every souvenir that she knew you'd find in a box one day and it would all come back and touch your heart.  Because it hits you hard when you put your eyes and hands on your past.  

Take me back.

If I bury my head in the boxes, I can smell our home.  This scent.  Keep.  Please never go away.

...

Goodbye house.  I hope the next family you surround and shelter with your good bones and your brick walls will feel your love as much as mine did. 

Because that is the biggest treasure of all.  Keep.

Definitely keep.