Seems so hard to believe but even now, nearly a year after I moved here to the Western Slopes from my beloved home in Kansas, I am still unpacking boxes that have been stored these many months. Each trip that I've made back and forth between Hutch and Montrose, I've always managed to come back with a carload of stuff that needs to make the 611 mile trip over the big mountain. By the end of the month I hope to have everything emptied out of my house back home in Kansas and either put to use here or delegated to storage for a while. Most of the big stuff has already been taken care of. Now it's just the little stuff, the leftovers that remain.
Some of the last things that I have brought out here were the boxes and tubs that I had tucked away into the two small bedroom closets in my old home. I knew they were in there all along and could have brought them out at any time before now. But I chose to leave them to the very last for a reason. And the reason is this.....
Inside of those boxes were about two gazillion greetings cards and letters that I had been saving for many, many years. My LIFE was inside of those boxes and I knew that if I had to face what was there, I'd be even more homesick than I already was. It was definitely an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of moment. As life got better here in Colorado for me, I slowly began to dare to bring out a box or two each time I went back to visit my home there in the Midwest. I didn't always open the boxes up before storing them here but sometimes I would peek inside and pull out a card or two and read them once more. It wasn't easy, really believe it or not, it wasn't easy at first. Sometimes a tear or two would make its way down my cheek and I'd quickly put the lid back on the box. But it got better and as time went on, I found a lot of solace and much peace in rereading the greetings from the people inside "the box".
As I sit here in the living room this morning in the very early morning hours of this Tuesday, I'm pretty much surrounded by the boxes. We've been doing some major changes inside of the house here and to be honest there is stuff strewn from here to tomorrow. Yet the nice thing is, I'm "ok" with all of the greetings from my past being around me. I know what is inside of those containers and they no longer haunt me, no longer taunt me to look at them. And if I wasn't so dang busy doing 40 gazillion OTHER things, I'd be looking at them right at this very moment in time. I think that is a good sign for me, don't you?
I'm rereading a book that I love, a quick read called "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman. Within the pages, they address the issue of saving old letters and cards and why it is that people do it. I love what they write and after reading it, I realize that even though I have saved countless greeting cards and letters over the years, there is a real reason for it. I'm not as weird as I thought I was. From their book, THEIR words.....
"Why do we keep them? Maybe because they are the mile markers of our journey, the currency of our soul and our past. They give our lives a value nothing else can approach. They marked the times in our lives when we knew we were loved." (the words of Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman from their book, "Live Like You Were Dying".
Not exactly sure what will become of the cards in the months and years to come. For right now, they will probably be stored under the bed somewhere or high atop the closet shelves. Once in a while, I may take them out and look at them once again. I don't have to do it all at once. Not like they will go "bad" or anything :) But perhaps when I am long gone from this earth, my family will look through them and "meet" through the messages scrawled and scribbled across the bottom of each greeting card, people they have never met before. Little Catherine Lois may hold them in her hands one day, a grown woman who is looking through the last belongings of her Grandma Peggy. Perhaps she will some day share them with HER own daughter. The possibilities of old greeting cards are endless. Talk about your oral history lesson.
The day is getting ready to begin here in Montrose County and we are down to the last remnants of the school year. Somewhere in their own homes, the "18" are still sleeping. Our last 6.5 days together are looking at us square in the eyes. I've been the recipient of many greeting cards from those dear fourth-grade students of mine this year and have neatly tucked away the cards that they have given me. It's getting a little crowded in those boxes as of late and since I have no intentions of getting rid of any of the cards, I guess that it's time to buy a few more empty boxes.
I'm a saver of cards, like my mother and grandmother before me. I come by it naturally and honestly. I love the messages. I love the memories. I love my life. Dear friends, may the same be said for you. God's richest blessings to all of you this very day. This is Tuesday, the 13th day in May, 2014. What a great day to be alive in!
A message that I found that had been left inside the walls of the Roseman Bridge, Madison County, Iowa in the autumn of 2011. What a wonderful day to visit the covered bridges of Madison County.
These sweet children from summer school in Hutch made me cards to say "thank you" for being their teacher that July. They are folded up in the bottom of one of the containers next to me. Their kind and honest sentiments are forever inscribed in crayon for me to enjoy in the years to come. "Kid made" cards are among the finest to have ever received.
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