Their marriage was good, their dreams focused.
Their best friends lived barely a wave away.
I can see them now,
Dad in trousers, work shirt and a hat;
and Mom in a house dress;
lawn mower in one hand,
and dish-towel in the other.
It was the time for fixing things:
a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door,
the clothesline, the hem in a dress.
Things we keep.
It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy.
All that re-fixing, re-heating leftovers, renewing;
I wanted just once to be wasteful.
Waste meant affluence.
Throwing things away meant you
knew there'd always be more.
But when my mother died, and I was standing in that
clear morning light in the warmth of
the sun at the cemetery,
I was struck with the pain of learning that
sometimes there isn't any more.
Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away..
never to return.
So... While we have it, it's best we love it..
And care for it... And fix it when it's broken...
This is true:
For marriage...
And old cars...
And children with bad report cards.
Dogs and cats with bad hips...
And aging parents...
And grandparents.
We keep them because they are worth it,
because we are worth it.
Some things we keep,
like a best friend that moved away
or a classmate we grew up with.
There are just some things that make life important,
like people we know who are special...
And so, we keep them close!
Anonymous
3 comments:
How true the sentiment and the word. The shirt became the most loved in our family, seemed to go round the whole tribe before ending up as a scrap in a quilt. I love looking at our old quilts that came from coats and aprons, nothing was ever retired before it's time....... most especially the folks.
This is really sweet. I thought maybe you wrote it until I saw it was anonymous.
This hit home when I read it. I was recently talking about how I used to save broken fridge magnets, necklaces, stray buttons, etc for a year and then plan a "fix it" weekend. I'd reglue rhinestone on earrings, mend, untangle the girls' chains...all those little things that made the broken useable again. I fix things like the edge of the linoleum that was lifting, loose door knobs.
My girls always appreciated it when I fixed their things but thought I was half nuts.
We girls were all differently shaped and wore slightly different sizes most of the time. If one gained weight and one lost weight, we'd exchange clothes. There were favorite items that all of us had possession of repeatedly. Sort of that Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants thing.
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