Memories found

We are visiting my 80-something year old grandparents in Boca Raton this week. My grandmother has a tendency to keep everything, which I’m sure has something to do with my tendency to get rid of everything.

During a previous visit, I was helping her reorganize the kitchen. She’s wheelchair-bound and can’t reach a lot of things, so I was trying to make her life a little easier. There was a stack of never-used “good” dishes, several of which had gotten broken during some kitchen remodeling. I had gathered up the pieces and put them in a bag to recycle when I was intercepted. “Maybe the store will take them back”, my grandmother declared, taking the bag from me and slipping the shards into a closet, away from my meddling reach.

Sometimes, however, I’m grateful for her inner pack-rat. Last night, while going through yet another cabinet where I found a coupon that expired in 1989, I found a little piece of my own past. There, among the stacks of unsent cards, old stationery, and other yellowed papers, was a stack of drawings that I did when I was about 4 years old.

They are especially precious right now because in many of them I am practicing my new writing skills, something Anna is just learning now. It’s so interesting to have the opportunity to glimpse a moment in time where I parallel my daughter. I can already feel my own pack-rat tendencies emerging!