It's March 30, and the snow flurries are wafting down and leaving their mark on the grass. As I pack up the material evidences of many years of living, along with the myriad memories that go with each piece and parcel, I gaze out the window at this:
Many things have been carted off to the church for the bazaar or to the goodwill store and Salvation Army pick up, while others are carefully wrapped in packing paper or bubble wrap and placed in a box. How can we manage to have so much 'stuff' anyway? Yes, over seventy years of living, forty-six of which were spent in married life raising four children and now the last nine years of widowhood, but my goodness! I am convicted of being much too materialistic. Is this what I have to show for living? Dishes ... pots and pans ... furniture .... lamps... books ... towels and sheets? Oh yes and then there are photo albums, precious pictures, boxes of letters and diplomas and memories. And the books - the precious books. Boxes of books. Some carted off to the above-mentioned destinations, while others were hauled off to Half-Price Books to be sold to another reader somewhere!
Empty bookcases. Boxes stacked in the library, in the dining room - everywhere boxes.
One thing this moving and packing has certainly done is make me realize again how brief this life is and that we should use that good china, the delicate goblets, the good linens, the embroidered pillowcases. Light the candles and enjoy what we have - every day - don't wait!!!!
Love,
Janet
