Keepsakes

My parents brought me up a box of stuff I had saved through the years, mostly from high school.  I put off sorting through it because I knew I would inevitable sit for hours pouring over it all trying to remember what was what.  When I finally convinced myself to get it done if for no other reason than that I could tell from Sean’s asking, “Are you going to look at that now?” for the third time that he was sick of looking at it.  As I did I found myself wondering what makes us keep the things we keep.  What is it about certain things that make us hold onto random items?  Are we thinking we’ll reuse them again at some point; that’ll we’ll need an old movie ticket stub, or get to wear a dried corsage on our wrist again?  More likely I think we want to make sure we can hold on a to a piece of those moments in the event our memories fail us.  I have to laugh now because as I say that I could honestly tell you that 8 out of the 10 notes that I’d saved back then from friends and read I had zero recollection of the situations or even some of the people referenced and so really how important could they have been?

It made me feel kind of ridiculous about all of the things I’ve held onto over the more recent years.  Do I really need to be hanging onto it all?  I also felt like a hypocrite because even though my siblings and I tease our poor mother about being a packrat, as a parent I now understand the desperation to hold onto every moment of my babies’ lives.

From Kennedy’s odds and ends that made it into her baby book, to her hair clippings from her first haircut, to the nine Rubbermaid tubs of clothes I convinced myself I saved incase we had another girl (and never got around to going through even after we found out Jack was a boy), I find myself doing the very same things I swore I wouldn’t do because I’m no fan of clutter.  But there’s just some part of me that feels like I can’t let go of anything that has been a part of her.  I’ve learned to take advantage of times when I’m on a cleaning spree and part with things that are obviously less important than others as a means of ensuring our home is not overtaken and featured on an episode of Hoarders.  

It’s different with Jack in more ways than one.  I have the beautiful memory box the hospital made for us, including photos, his bracelet, the little hand knitted hat he wore, the cast molds of his feet, and his hand and footprints, all of which I will obviously always keep.  I kept every single card given to me by all of our loving family and friends.  I have saved every ultrasound picture, and there is probably close to 50 or 60 over the course of my pregnancy with him.  Though he never had the chance to wear any of it, the little guy already had a pretty extensive wardrobe.  It all still hangs in the closet that would have been his.  I couldn’t bear to return it, still can’t bring myself to box it up, but know I will never be able to give it away.  I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to part with anything of his.  In the grand scheme of things and in terms of what a person acquires in their lives, it’s such a small amount that the claim of lack of space is not a sufficient reason to ever let go of Jack’s things, as far as I’m concerned.              

It is silly though, really.  I don’t need any of it to call to mind my children.  I will always be able to close my eyes and physically feel them placed in my arms for the first time and the weight behind each of them.  The way the skin felt on the backs of their hands when I held it for the first time.  These things required no keepsake, nothing to physically tuck away in a book or box.  Sometimes during sleepless nights I find myself worried that when I get old and my memories fade, will I forget these things.  It’s only after I remind myself these parts of my kids are not stored in a box or even my mind, they are kept in my heart and will stay inside of there forever.